
Our public access internet computers will be unavailable on the 19th for some upgrading, but our free wireless internet will still be available!
Most people who garden in this area have done at least one round of planting for this year. After planting comes watering, then weeding, and hopefully harvesting! However, if the time, effort, and expense of watering your garden seems like something you’d rather avoid, consider a low-water garden. The Water-Saving Garden: How to grow a gorgeous garden with a lot less water by Pam Penick will give you plenty of ideas for turning your traditional lawn and garden spaces into lower maintenance and certainly lower water use areas, while still maintaining a beautiful space. If you think that water-saving gardens automatically mean hard, sterile concrete and stone features, this book will prove you wrong!
Divided into 5 sections absolutely stuffed with color photographs, this book first goes through several example gardens, then on to water saving tactics in use, whether through catchment systems or water retaining landscape features. The third section moves on to actually installing a water saving garden, with a short section on what to plant in pots for balcony or very small space gardening. Creating the illusion of water through fountains, plants, and architectural elements features in a fourth section. Finally, at the back of the book is a section listing 101 plants, trees, shrubs, and flowers to plant. An index may help you find specific information if you already have something in mind. The author encourages the removal of traditional manicured lawns in favor of native grasses and many of the photographs are of carefully designed spaces. Most homeowners may not be willing to tackle an all-encompassing and expensive project; the reader can still glean specific, smaller scale ideas from this book
You can get the book reviewed here, which was The Water-Saving Garden by Pam Penick, and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit. This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”