Handsome and useful

Plants and Landscapes for Summer Dry Climates

Nora Harlow

East Bay Municipal Utility District, $49.95 hardcover, $34.95 softcover

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A friend offered me a small fortune for an out-of-print book self-published in 1992 by landscape architect Bob Perry, “Landscape Plants for Western Regions.” It is sorely missed, but along comes this good stand-in published by a utility. Though aimed at Northern California, it works just fine here.

This book is filled with plants from Mediterranean climates like our own -- the kinds of plants that look and do so well here, including many California natives. What sets this handsome and useful coffee-table book apart are the 542 sumptuous photographs by well-known garden photographer Saxon Holt. Most of the plants seem to have been found not just anywhere, but in tastefully designed gardens.

Find a place for this one on your bookshelf, perhaps next to the Western Garden Book, because it is full of excellent choices. After only one look-through, mine bristled with yellow sticky notes.

Because a utility is behind it, water requirements of each plant are noted, and it mentions those “ignored by deer” -- useful for hill folk.

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Robert Smaus