Book Recommendations

As a perennial gardener, you are probably very interested in having a good reference library about perennial gardening. Below you will find several recommend books dedicated to perennial garden design and maintenance. These book cover a wide range of perennial garden techniques, and include titles interested in flowers, vegetables and creating a shade perennial garden.

Cohen and Ondra's book, The Perennial Gardener's Design Primer, is an excellent instructional manual for both beginners and more advanced perennial gardeners who are interested in creating beautiful perennial gardens. In their book , the authors work to clearly explain perennial design technique and help gardeners put together beautiful design schemes that maximize seasonal color impact and are well adapted to site conditions. The book design schemes are well illustrated using color sketches, photographs and schematic plants.

The Well-Tended Perennial Garden is one of the most widely used perennial reference books in existence. Over 130,000 copies have been sold since it was originally published, and in this revised and expanded edition you will find even more useful information for the perennial gardener. There are over 200 color photos in the expanded edition, showing perennials in a wide variety of gardening situations, and this new edition also contains a 32 page journal section for you to enter in your own observations and notes regarding your experiences in perennial gardening.




Perennials love company, and in Perennial Companions, perennial designs using two or more different perennial plants will be explored and explain. The goal of this book is to help the perennial gardener achieve beautiful perennial combinations based on color, form, and texture. For those interested in even more information about perennial design, this reference manual is highly recommended.



Perennials are not limited to flowers, of course, and in Perennial Vegetables, Eric Toensmeier discusses over a hundred different varieties of vegetables with a perennial growing habit and important perennial vegetable cultivation techniques, including site selection and preparation. Toensmeier provides detailed information about the growing habit of both popular perennial vegetable varieties, such as rhubarb, artichoke and asparagus, as well as lesser known varieties that gardeners may want to experiment with, including Sea Beets and Air Potatoes. The book is well suited for growers in a variety of climate zones, and includes a section on design ideas to help with garden layout. Both beginning and advanced gardeners interested in learning more about the the growing of perennial vegetable varieties will find this book a valuable addition to their gardening library.



Perhaps one of the most challenging gardening situations is creating a garden in a site dominated by shade. Fortunately, as documented in An Encyclopedia of Shade Perennials, there are many shade loving perennial plants available to help with this gardening challenge.