Performance plants: 250 plants for year-round success in your garden

Performance plants are the mainstay of every garden. They give of their best more than once a year, offering fall berries as well as spring blossom, or summer foliage followed by colorful winter bark. Some give repeated shows of flowers while others have attractive seedheads that last throughout the winter. Performers among the roses, for example, are the Rugosas, which flower throughout the summer and produce gorgeous plump red hips in fall when their leaves, too, give good color. Offering year-round interest, these are the plants that give best value, particularly where space is at a premium and every plant must earn its keep. Andrew Lawson's choice of more than 250 trees, shrubs and flowers enables gardeners to select good performers and to choose varieties which, because of their size, shape, color, or growing needs, are right for each location. He describes why they earn their keep and what they contribute in each season. Cultivation requirements are outlined for every plant, together with useful general hints and suggestions for successful plant associations. He shows, too, how to get added value by an intelligent approach to planting, masking one plant's weakness with another's strength: a clematis grown into a spring-flowering tree or shrub extends its season into summer. For easy reference, the plants are divided into categories and listed alphabetically, but they are so beautifully and perceptively described that this is much more than a reference book. The author's own superb photographs record the performance of individual plants or groups of plants through the course of the seasons, graphically demonstrating their contribution to the garden setting. Performance Plants is an inspiration as well as a practical guide: it will be welcomed and appreciated by every gardener.