Planting the Dry Shade Garden: The Best Plants for the Toughest Spot in Your Garden Kindle Edition

The nursery told me I couldn’t garden in dry shade but this book provides the guidance and tools required to do just that.There is no magical fix. You have to work around the problems that exist, such as an impenetrable mat of thirsty tree roots topped with a canopy of leaves. This book helps you do that.The quality of the paper and printing is very good. Pictures are provided of closeups of the plants for the most part. I would have liked to see more landscaping ideas pictured, but that is not a criticism of a very well thought out book.

Planting the Dry Shade Garden is a very useful book for anyone working with a dry shady area. The book is well written with excellent comments on improving shady dry areas, and many suggestions for plants to put in such areas. The pictures are beautiful and sharp and informative. The information on the plants is complete with excellent comments. Specific suggestions are made as to specie and varieties of most of the plants that are best suited for the dry shady areas.But, as the author suggests much care must be taken in using many of the cultivars suggested. Many of these plant suggestions may be hard to find. Some can turn into real garden thugs if allowed to escape the dry, shady areas into more moist or less shady areas. The shade and dryness limit their natural propagation.The author's suggestions are limited to the exact specie and variety he suggests. There other species and varieties of these plants that are not so shade or drought resistant. Also, the author gardens on both sides of the Atlantic, and some plants may be better suited to one side or the other of that ocean.I strongly recommend this book as a reference book for finding beautiful plants for dry shady areas, with the caveat that the gardener do his/her homework as in further research on the plants before planting these plants.

Love this book. I've been struggling to plant around my house due to the northern exposure and the trees sucking up all the moisture. I had planted a few of the plants listed prior to reading this and they are doing well so I have good hope that the others I came across in this book will do well also. Highly recommend if you are facing a similar situation.

This is a great gardening book with clear photos, planting specifics and examples of many plants to use in dry-shade gardens. I’ve planted enough of the recommendations to know this will help my garden!

Great book for a difficult growing environment

Initial response is positive because it includes zoning for plants. Being a Zone 3 gardener limits our choices considerably but this author addresses that issue. He also understands and explains tree canopies, northern latitude shade challenges and benefits - the underlying challenges of gardening under trees and next to buildings and shade structures. I think this will be a big help when I garden and when I do gardening presentations so will probably recommend the book to others.

Lots of good information on plant choices

I found this book an excellent reference on choosing plants suitable for shaded areas of my yard. As trees grow, the micro - ecology changes, making life difficult for sun - loving plant varieties. I found the many excellent photos helpful.

Interesting book with plenty of good size photographs, but it falls into the same trap as all other books I have come across on dry gardening. Rather than accepting the problem and moving forward from there with a discussion of plants that will happily grow in dry shade it starts out telling us how to do away with dry shade, So following the first chapter about "Understanding Dry Shade" the second chapter proceeds to tell us what to do to change the situation under the headings "Reducing Shade" and "Increasing Moisture" so we no longer have dry shade - the book does not really to live up to the title "Planting in Dry Shade".

I design gardens for a living and clients often talk to me about the problem area in their garden which invariably turns out to be a dry shady area. However there is a fairly wide choice of plants that will tolerate dry shade and there are, of course, some spectacular woodland gardens. The main part of this book offers up a selection of plants suitable for dry shade. The introduction looks at the types of dry shade areas and offer some suggestions to improve conditions, although of course these may not be appropriate for every garden. I think it is rather unfair to criticise the book for suggesting ways to improve conditions - this is what many people want to do and it is sometimes a sensible and achievable solution. The plant suggestions given will work where site improvement isn't an option or for someone who wants to embrace the conditions of the site they have.I was somewhat surprised that the suggestion of increasing soil levels didn't come with a stronger health warning - it is a technique that requires great care and a novice might not appreciate the potential dangers. Aside from this, the information is generally well-explained.

Normally love graham's books, but this one I find less inspiring. Very light (no pun intended) on helping you plan, establish and maintain a Dry Shade Garden. Pity.

A good read and plenty of ideas for a woodland garden. I have gleaned a few more ideas and better still specific variations of species to try and establish in a very dry wood.

Beautifully illustrated and with plenty of practical ideas for planting. A useful book for anyone with a dry shaded problem area.