Dryland Gardening: Plants that Survive and Thrive in ... (ISBN 1554070317)

A real problem-solver for any seeking to produce a beautiful garden under today's drier conditions:
As the planetary weather patterns and overall environment warms, so garden plants which typically did well in prior decades are now suffering from hotter summers, requiring even the most experienced gardener to try new plants which have a greater range of tolerance to warmer conditions. Gardening writer Jennifer Bennett has already produced several award-winning titles, but Dryland Gardening: Plants That Survive And Thrive In Tough Conditions is broader-based than most, and provides alternative plant choices for all kinds of dry conditions. Organized by type of plant: bulbs, grasses, groundcovers and vines, and even herbs, Dryland Gardening is a real problem-solver for any seeking to produce a beautiful garden under today's drier conditions.

Slightly misleading title for some:
Based on its title, I bought this book, thinking it would be useful in the brutally hot, bone-dry and windy desert southwest, where we average 5" of rain per year. Turns out that "Dryland" and "thrive in tough conditions" means "dryish with cold winters", as this book's focus is on zones 4-7, and it rather pointedly avoids most plants which actually do thrive with little moisture in our hot low desert. I don't mean to come down hard on the author; the book is very nice and well laid out and has great photos, but if you are looking for low desert problem solving, don't let this book's title mislead you as it did me.

An overview of low-water gardening. You'll need another manual if you want to overhaul your own landscaping.:
Jennifer Bennett's DRYLAND GARDENING is a well-structured and well-researched guide to plants that survive and thrive in tough conditions. The author describes herbs, ground covers, bulbs, vines, flowers, and shrubs that will withstand the inevitable drought she (and many scientists) believe our world will be facing in a matter of years. DRYLAND GARDENING is best read as an overview of alternative garden theories. The reader will be introduced to dozens of species and techniques, complete with illustrations. For a major garden overhaul, however, a more detailed climate-specific manual should be purchased. If you read DRYLAND GARDENING and are inspired to modify your landscaping, I recommend picking up Ortho's All About Dry Climate Gardening or a title from the Sunset series.

Master Gardener Workshop Resource:
I selected Jennifer Bennett's "Dryland Gardening" for a basic primer on xeriscaping in southern New England for a RI Master Gardener Advanced Education workshop. Rhode Island receives between 39-54" of precipitation annually but water is not always available where and when it is needed - especially in the summer when gardeners are growing, and especially in many of our groundwater dependent areas. This primer has excellent pictures, zoned plant descriptions, and treats water conservation as a central concept. I highly rate this book.