"I have written this book so that others can experience the thrill of making a garden that is as boisterous as it is beautiful; a garden that sizzles with vivid colour and is alive with bees and butterflies; a garden of intoxicating scents that suffuse your skin and make you feel good even if the day is grey. And I also wanted to share the pleasure of a garden that somehow puts itself together with little intervention from the gardener - no planting plans required - and, as a bonus, needs no watering and very little maintenance." The traditional Mediterranean garden offers a garden that is beautiful through every season, whatever the climate, so that it can survive through the driest summers, and yet can cope with damp, rain and even frost. The low-water no-water method is for those who like their plants spirited and their flower beds exuberant. There are instructions for planting evergreens with robust, aromatic foliage, as well as low-maintenance shrubs that need no staking, watering, feeding or pruning. The book shows how tough love, not pampering, pays off, giving you a drought-proof and aromatic paradise in your own plot. Create a garden that is full of radiance and scent, with vivid flowers and foliage, and aromatic herbs - the perfect outdoor living room, whatever the weather.
Pattie Barron is a gardening journalist and author. She has a weekly column in the London Evening Standard and is the gardening editor for Good Housekeeping magazine. She has successfully created Mediterranean-style gardens on the frosty slope in the city of Bath and in the dry soil of a windswept coastal town, proving that these hardy plants work in all kinds of environment as well as in the sunny Mediterranean. She is currently creating her third Mediterranean garden, on the southern coast of England. Includes a foreword by writer and naturalist Richard Mabey, and photographs by Simon McBride.
