About the Book The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden makes a gorgeous perennial garden available to everyone, no matter their skill or the size of their space. Book Synopsis A veritable goldmine for gardeners. -- Plant Talk Weve all seen gorgeous perennial gardens packed with color, texture, and multi-season interest. Designed by a professional and maintained by a crew, they are aspirational bits of beauty too difficult to attempt at home. Or are they? The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden makes a design-magazine-worthy garden achievable at home. The new, simplified approach is made up of hardy, beautiful plants grown on a 10x14 foot grid. Each of the 62 garden plans combines complementary plants that thrive together and grow as a community. They are designed to make maintenance a snap. The garden plans can be followed explicitly or adjusted to meet individual needs, unlocking rich perennial landscape designs for individualization and creativity. From the Back Cover Looking for a lush, gorgeous, low-maintenance perennial garden? Roy Dibliks Know Maintenance system shows you the way. Choose from 62 plans, each designed to fill a 10- by 14-foot space. Every plan tells you which plants you need and shows you where to place them. There are plans for sun and shade, and for an array of different moods and color schemes. The plans are like building blocks to arrange any way you want. Have limited space? Select a single plan or use part of one. For large spaces, simply repeat a plan or combine it with others. Best of all, the Know Maintenance system will show you how to reduce garden chores to only minutes a week. Youll learn when to plant and water, how to weed strategically, and how to relax and enjoy the garden of your dreams. Noted plantsman and designer Roy Diblik has spent more than 30 years studying, growing, and enjoying plants. He is the owner of Northwind Perennial Farm, a nursery in Burlington, Wisconsin, and is best known as the plantsman behind the Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in Chicago. Review Quotes [Diblik] appropriately starts the book off with chapters on understanding your garden (soil, light, shade), understanding plants (growth habits, flowers, foliage, stems, crowns), preparing and maintaining the site, and some likely plants to consider. Then comes the true treasure--chapter 6 has 62 planting plans, broken down into sun and shade, and then further into themes inspired by successful public plantings (the High Line, Essence of Piet Oudolf) or even paintings (van Goghs Poets Garden). -- Landscape Architecture Diblik has codified a naturalistic, yet artistic, approach to building garden beds in the northern tier of North America. Soil composition and amount of sunlight form the starting point to finding a palette of plants sympathetic with a site. Diblik stresses intimate contact with your plants as it allows you to know them, the most important aspect of gardening in his opinion. Many inspiring photographs depict the colorful and textural results. Ornamental grasses figure prominently as a foil for the colorful blossoming plants. Themed templates, many titled after Impressionist paintings, will help readers knowingly plan their garden. -- Country Gardens A stunning guide to creating nature inspired gardens. . . . Diblik, who supplied many of the plants for the award-winning Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in Chicago, offers up detailed information about 74 sturdy and appealing perennials in a photo-rich reference. -- Chicago Tribune Perennial gardeners will appreciate The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden , a book based on the premise that knowing your plants helps you care for them more effectively, with less work. -- Akron Beacon Journal Diblik explains the concepts behind self-sustaining plant communities--plants that naturally grow well in harmony and require little maintenance, once established. With Dibliks method, you can throw out the mulch, abandon staking, deadheading, the fertilizers and herbicides, the end-of-the-season cleanups. Instead, youll learn to understand how plants grow--their soil, water, and light requirements--and the easy ways to get what you want. . . . A wonderful book for homeowners and designers alike--it definitely belongs on your bookshelf. -- Garden Design Online A straightforward, easy-to-follow guidebook for planting design success, suitable for the homeowner and professional alike. -- The Designer A book for thinking gardeners who really want to take the time to know their plants and understand how their plants live and work together as a sustainable community. Armed with this knowledge, gardeners will be free to actually spend time enjoying their gardens. -- A Garden of Possibilities If youre dreaming of a low-maintenance, lush, perennial garden this spring, then Roy Dibliks new book should be your planting bible. It provides dozens of fresh, detailed plans and gorgeous color photographs of easy-care yet stunningly artistic gardens. -- Garden Variety News The first half of the book covers site preparation, planting, care, maintenance, and of course, key plants for the authors know maintenance system. Diblik shows you how to reduce garden chores to only minutes a week. You will learn when to plant and water, and how to weed strategically. -- Michigan Gardener Diblik gives plant combination advice to make his lower maintenance, sustainable, and environmentally friendly technique work well and provide beauty year round. -- Journal Times The nuts and bolts of success with perennial flowers along with 62 sample garden designs and 74 high-performing, low-care perennial plants. -- Patriot-New