Garden Up! Vertical Gardening for Small and Large Spaces

What is vertical gardening? The best way to maximize outdoor spaces and create drama in your garden. In the book Garden Up! (An Amazon Best Books of 2011 selection) you’ll see many examples, such as growing edibles up a wall or learning which edibles double as ornamentals.   Have a landscape eyesore? You’ll find lots of solutions in Garden Up! You’ll get ideas on how to create focal points with arbors. You will see ideas for repurposing materials such as file cabinet drawers attached to a fence for growing herbs, and a strawberry tower of PVC pipes. You learn how to work with skinny spaces and maximize curb appeal.  This book is packed full of information and I see articles on it everywhere. The LA Times  had nice things to say about the book.

What I find particularly interesting about this book is the authors focus on right plant, right place. For those of us who are concerned about water management, this is one of the basic principles. You will also find information on sub-irrigated planters, removing concrete for permeable paths and, repurposing. Their discussions on living walls (Kelly Duke had an excellent post) are especially interesting and informative. The photographs are inspiring and were taken by Rebecca and Susan.

Rebecca Sweet is a landscape designer and owner of Harmony in the Garden, located in Northern California. Her gardens have been featured in Fine Gardening, Horticulture, Women’s Day, American Gardener and Country Almanac as well as regional publications.   In addition to designing, Rebecca is a featured columnist for Horticulture.  She also has her own blog, Gossip In The Garden, which I thought would be filled with lots of dirt on my friends in the landscaping world.  Instead I found wonderful information and pictures about gardens, designs and even trees.

Susan Morrison is a landscape designer, garden writer and Master Gardener based in Northern California. Her design philosophy is simple: create beautiful, sustainable gardens that fit her clients’ lifestyles. In addition to writing for traditional media publications such as Fine Gardening, Susan blogs about her life as a garden designer and shares her challenges and successes as a home gardener at “Blue Planet Garden Blog.” This is a great blog for ideas and is very entertaining. Susan is a founding member of the Lawn Reform Coalition and the Garden Designers Roundtable. As a Master Gardener and Bay-Friendly Qualified Design Professional, Susan is active in the gardening community and speaks on sustainable design principles. She is a member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers and has also served on the California Chapter Board of Directors.

Rebecca and Susan are in high demand, so we are so lucky to have them on #landscapechat on March 7^th from 11:00 to 12:00 PST. Follow us on Twitter at #landscapechat and come take part in the conversation.  Ask questions and you’ll certainly get some good answers.

Richard Restuccia  can be found on Twitter at H2OTrends, and will be hosting Rebecca and Susan Morrison next week on #landscapechat.