New Horizons for Northern Plants

Some years back, I got a chance to visit the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.  It was a completely shocking experience:  shocking to me, that is, because I had never seen such a vast array of absolutely stunning and gorgeous plants that I couldn't grow back in Washington DC or Massachusetts.  The only solution, I thought, would be a move to Arizona, but how could I ever live in a place with summers hotter than DC?

But now there is a solution, sans Phoenix, and all the answers can be found in Hardy Succulents: Tough Plants for Every Climate (Storey Publishing, 2008) by author Gwen Moore Kelaidis and photographer Saxon Holt. And those of us who live in northern areas are not just stuck with hens & chicks.  We can, in fact, grow majestic agaves, devote a corner to lovely flowering cacti, and perhaps even plant the beaked yucca (Yucca rostrata) as a very funky focal point. Some of the tree yuccas will reach 20 feet in height, and some are hardy as far north as Denver, New York City, and even southern New England.
Not to mention the vast variety of sedums; plus ice plants, the tiny Aloinopsis, Dudleya cymosa, and the midget-sized Yucca harrimaniae, some as small as just 6 inches wide. ANd yes, there are new hens & chicks on the market, too, of many colors: burgundy, pale rose, greens, golds, whites and other shades of red.

Stunning photographs throughout the book illustrate the vast possibilities for new planting designs that include some space for succulents.

This book makes a great accompaniment to last year's Designing with Succulents (Timber Press) by Deborah Lee Baldwin, which focused on plants hardy in zone 8 and above, which tend to be larger and splashier. 

Both belong on the designer's book shelf.

(click on image or text link to purchase book)

Comments

[Gordon Betts]

May I suggest the Stephen F. Austin State Unviversity Mast Arboretum to be listed with others such as the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Gardens? http://arboretum.sfasu.edu/