Hot Color, Dry Garden: Inspiring Designs and Vibrant Plants for the Waterwise Gardener

by Sterman

Dry weather defines the southwest, and it's getting dryer. As water becomes more precious, our gardens suffer. If we want to keep gardening, we must revolutionize our plant choices and garden practices. Hot Color, Dry Garden provides home gardeners with a joyful, color-filled way to exuberantly garden in low-water conditions. Garden expert Nan Sterman highlights inspiring examples of brilliant gardens filled with water-smart plants. Gardeners will find advice for adding color to the garden, information about designing for structure and texture, and a plant directory that features drought-tolerant plants that dazzle. Hot Color, Dry Garden is a must-have guide for gardeners in the Southwest and other areas affected by drought and low-water conditions.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Reference

738 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 26, 2018

Reviews

[Yaaresse · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very focused on California and Arizona with some New Mexico. Not really useful for the interior west. There are a lot of pictures, but they are tiny (in Kindle) and not particularly well photographed or explained. OK, great, you show a tiny picture of your yard with a bunch of plants in it that has no actual focal point. How about a diagram showing the plantings or explanation of the rational behind what went where? Many of the pictures show similar ideas, and I just didn't see much unique or interesting.

There are lists of plants, but, again, they were selected primarily for California and Arizona. Very few of the plants shown are hardy below 15-25 degrees F. Also curious is that the descriptions do not include the standardized USDA hardiness zones, which would tell me a lot more about a plant than simply "good to 25 degrees F."

Fortunately, this was a library book - which makes me wonder what our library was thinking since it's not useful for our area -- and so I'm not out anything but time. I think it's going to be hard to beat the Sunset Western Plant Guide for either information or ideas.

[Chiao-yu Tuan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book. Easy read. Beautiful gardens as examples. Definitely learned something.

Main reason for four stars is the information organization is not great. I often find beautiful plants in example garden photos but struggle to tell what plant it is. The captions don’t always say. Instead, it repeats info in the main article. Meanwhile, places that do list the species don’t quite tell you what they look like.

[Claire Hardwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 - 3 Stars

Majority of the book would only be applicable to California. I do enjoy arid gardens, but was honestly bored with 85% of the book. Monotonously repeating same material.

I will say the best thing about the book that is well worth the read is the very end there is a section about best practices to apply Dry Water Wise Gardening. Really great information found there about grey water use in the garden, which plants can handle it. Surprisingly, the author said uses grey water on fruit trees.

[Colette · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good “idea” book for adding color to dry gardens. A large majority of the example gardens are in California, though, so it isn’t as helpful for me. There is an extensive plant directory that contains many hardier plants that would probably work where I live. I would like to keep this book around to refer to.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine introduction to dry gardening in the southwest. This would be useful as an introduction and has an especially useful plant profile section at the end. Not very helpful for a sandy, coastal garden in the northeast.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn't beautiful and inspiring or vastly informative. The photos could have been better and also often didn't have information about what plants were pictured. The second half of the book is reference on plants (encyclopedia style) and, again, photos could have been better.

[Onceinabluemoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good resource book for the arid west.

[Kami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful gardens but only applicable to California, Arizona and New Mexico. Definitely NOT applicable to the Red Desert steppes of Wyoming....or any northern desert in Utah, Colorado, or Nevada.

[Jane Dugger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very nicely done.

[PottWab Regional Library]

E

[Angela Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Definitely recommend.

[Josh Fogelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not the biggest fan of the gardens she showcases... they look a bit old fashioned to me. But good exploration of dry garden design with lots of color. The second half of the book that catalogues many drought-tolerant plants is very useful though. She describes a species, then they many varieties that are useful for a garden.

[Kerrific Kerr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book with great photos but would be most helpful to those gardening in the southwest USA. We also live in a desert but it's a cold desert so most of the plants mentioned will not grow here. Loved the photos!

[Leyla Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely fabulous book with such a lot of information on how to deal with our drier climate and our need to save water, as well as creating a beautiful and low maintenance garden. having just moved from a wet coastal area to a semi arid area recently, the challengers were great and I am finding my way.
this book is very helpful in the way it illustrates gardens and talks to designers to help understand that a hot, dry garden can have colour, fabulous plants and still be attractive and serviceable.
The book is divided into sections with a gallery of gardens, plant profiles and lots more. a really informative and useful book, and not just for the arid areas.

[Marie]

This book was inspiring for me to read and to look at the pictures now that I’ve moved back to AZ and I’m starting my new landscaping.