A bevy of beauty tips for your yard

The 100 or so categories covered include the big and the small: arbors and arches, benches, boathouses, bog gardens, courtyards and patios, gates, paths, fountains, stepping stones, and water gardens. By the time you reach the end, the only question will be: Which part of the landscape to tackle first?

Books on landscaping can provide the building blocks of a yard. But those wonderful plans will never live up to their potential without rock-solid information about plants. Fortunately, University of Georgia horticulture professor Allan M. Armitage knows practically everything there is to know about plants, especially flowers - and he's always willing to share his knowledge.

His latest volume, which focuses on wildflowers, is a reference par excellence. Armitage's Native Plants for North American Gardens takes an encyclopedic approach with alphabetical entries. But don't imagine that means the writing is as dry as the proverbial dust. Armitage puts his personal experience - and plenty of personality - into every page. Discussing the umbrella plant, for instance, he warns that it's not for every climate: "If it is happy, it will skip along with unbounded joy; if it is not, it will sit there, pouting, then disappear." And of white spurge, he says flatly, "Some people really love this plant, and I have seen it look good on occasion, but the occasions have been few and far between." You'll frequently find yourself smiling while you soak up this master horticulturist's vast knowledge.

At first glance, Tempting Tropicals may appear to be another book about the current drive toward filling US gardens with plants native to the tropics. Instead, Ellen Zachos suggests a different approach to these intriguing and exotic plants: Grow them indoors as houseplants.

Among the 175 on which she chooses to focus, many bloom or have colorful foliage, and the majority will be unfamiliar to most gardeners. This trio of attributes will add to their appeal. Why stop with Christmas and Thanksgiving cactus, for example, when you can add spring-blooming Easter cactus to your windowsill? Or why settle for English ivy when you can grow something called purple waffle plant or lobster claw?

It's also interesting to consider plants that you may have imagined grew only outdoors - Carolina Jessamine, Clerodendrum, Datura, kumquat, passionflower - as indoor residents. The only drawback to all this tropical temptation is that many of the plants require full sun. But Zachos allows gardeners to daydream of sultry climates during those cold, colorless days of winter.

By providing inspiration and information, will these books guarantee success in the garden? Well, the truth is, you'll also need to do some hard work - or have the money to hire someone to do it for you. Books can't help you there. But they'll certainly start you down the right path.

• Judy Lowe is the Monitor's Home Forum editor.

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