Kerry Ann Mendez - The Right-Size Flower Garden: Simplify Your Outdoor Space with Smart Design Solutions and Plant Choices

Praise for

The Right-Size Flower Garden

Kerry Mendez has amassed a tremendous knowledge and expertise in horticulture, yet she is able to pass along this knowledge in a completely approachable way that feels more like a friendly conversation over the garden fence than a lecture. Her enthusiasm for flowers and gardening is truly infectious and her passion for sharing is boundless. In this complicated and overscheduled age, Kerry brings a simple, no nonsense approach that will show you how to have beautiful gardens without spending a fortune of time or money.

~ William Cullina, award-winning author and Executive Director of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

In The Right-Size Flower Garden, Kerry Ann Mendezs voice is warm and welcomingand oh so REAL! With her friendly guidance, a low-maintenance garden is not only possible, its downright life-changing! Dont let your garden hold you hostage let Kerry show you how to pare-it-down while jazzing-it-up!

~ Jessica Walliser, author of Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control and Good Bug Bad Bug: Whos Who, What They Do, and How to Manage Them Organically

The Right-size Flower Garden offers wise guidance for garden enthusiasts of all levels. Through Kerrys work as a gardener, teacher, author and lecturer, she has helped many discover the world of gardening and horticulture. Kerry Mendez is a 2014 Gold Medal Awardee, an honor Massachusetts Horticultural Society bestows on distinguished individuals who promote horticulture for the public good.

~ Katherine K. Macdonald, President, Massachusetts Horticultural Society

In these busy times, everyone can appreciate a manageable garden. Kerry Ann Mendez is the best person to show us all how with humor. Kerry Ann has repeatedly inspired standing-room-only crowds at the annual PHS Philadelphia Flower Show with her time-saving tips and user-friendly garden designs.

~ Patricia Schrieber, Director of Education,
~ Barley Van Clief, Tree Tenders Project Manager,
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society

As a gardener whose garden is never quite big enough, I expect that Kerry Ann will instruct me how to squeeze in everything I could possibly want to grow and not into heaving acres but into a garden that is just the right size; in this case right means manageable.

~ Ethne Clarke, author, photojournalist, and former Editor in Chief, Organic Gardening;
Garden Editor, Traditional Home; Contributing Editor, House & Garden

Kerry Mendez is a garden author and lecturer who incorporates humor, abundant excitement, knowledge, and above all a passion for low-maintenance garden and landscape design. Kerry is the perfect author to approach the topic of right-sizing a garden to fit changing lifestyles. In her new book The Right-Size Flower Garden, Kerry presents a step-by-step method to create a garden in balance with your lifestyle.

~ Dr. Steven Still, Executive Director, the Perennial Plant Association and former professor of landscape horticulture at The Ohio State University

the right-size flower garden

the right-size flower garden

KERRY ANN MENDEZ

The Right-Size Flower Garden

Simplify Your Outdoor Space with Smart Design Solutions and Plant Choices

Copyright 2015 Kerry Ann Mendez

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9892688-7-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014944845

CIP information available upon request

First Edition, 2015

St. Lynns Press . POB 18680 . Pittsburgh, PA 15236

412.466.0790 . www.stlynnspress.com

Book design Holly Rosborough

Editor Catherine Dees

This title and all of St. Lynns Press books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department . St. Lynns Press . POB 18680 . Pittsburgh, PA 15236

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my dearly loved sisters, Kim and Jane,
with whom Ive shared sweet laughter and tears.

PHOTO CREDITS

Bailey Nurseries pages

Jack Barnwell page

Blooms of Bressingham page

Bluestone Perennials pages

Brent and Beckys Bulbs pages

Naomi Brooks pages

Burpee Seeds pages

Cali Bamboo page

Chicago Botanic Garden page

David Chinery page

Laura Deeter pages

Faddegons Nursery pages

Fall Creek Farm page

Gardeners Supply Company pages

Chris Hansen page

Hort Couture page

Janet Loughery page

Julie Moir Messervy page

Monrovia pages

Mt. Cuba Center page

North Creek Nurseries pages

Ellen Ogden pages

Plant Delights pages

Proven Winners pages

Spring Meadow Nursery pages

Steve Silk page

Sunny Border Nurseries page

Terra Nova Nurseries pages

Terrapin Landscaping page

Deborah Trickett pages

Upshoot page

Ann Van Wie page

Walters Gardens, Inc. pages

All other photos by the author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Garden design: Jack Barnwell

INTRODUCTION

Ahhh, the gardening bug. I know how it feels to have it. There are a lot of us out there unsuspecting folks who caught it too. And then it took over. We relished digging our lawns out to make room for plants we just had to have: a cutting garden here, a shade garden there, and theres always an adorable rock garden somewhere! We gardened anywhere we could including up! This wonderful obsession worked fine for a while before life happened.

O ur bodies suddenly seemed to age, we discovered new hobbies, adorable children or grandchildren arrived on the scene, job demands changed. We gardened ourselves into a corner. Like deer in the headlights, some of us chose to remain motionless as we watched our gardens slowly fall into disarray. Or we made a frenzied dash and doubled efforts to keep up with maintenance, almost burying ourselves in the compost pile in the process!