Plant Books for Southern California

[Katie Seidenwurm]

I am new to the Southern California (San Diego) area and am looking to add to my Plant Reference book library. What are your essential regional plant books besides Sunset? – Thanks.

[Bob Luther]

Landscape Plants for Western Regions: An Illustrated Guide to Plants for Water Conservation by Bob Perry
California Native Plants for the Garden by Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O’Brien

[Katie Seidenwurm]

Great. Thanks.

[Kimberly True]

Landscape Plants for California Gardens by Bob Perry, available online: http://landdesignpublishing.com/index.html
Landscape Plants for Western Regions is out of print.
Bob’s book will get you up to speed on California climate considerations and water use in addition to plants.

[Katie Seidenwurm]

Great, thanks.

[Drew Ready]

http://lasgrwc2.org/Files/document/Sustainable%20Landscape%20Bibliography_Sustainable_Landscape_Bibliography_1_26_10.pdf

[Katie Seidenwurm]

That is quite a list. Thank you so much.

[Mitch Howard]

A couple more books to add to what is becoming quite a comprehensive list …
Designing California Native Gardens by Glenn Keator and Alrie Middlebrook.
The California Garden by Jere Stuart French.
The California Landscape Garden by Mark Francis and Andreas Reimann

[Page Huyette]

One of the favorites on my shelf is “The Gardens of California” by Nancy Goslee Power. It provides great images of many major and minor southern California landscapes, with partial plant lists accompanying each project. While I was getting started on my journey into plant knowledge, this book was very inspirational to me. She also has a more recent book entitled “Power of Gardens” which I don’t have, but might be worth checking out.

In addition to the resource books already listed, such as Bob Perry’s book and others, I found it even more helpful to study plant combinations in books by other designers.

Page Huyette

[Juan Antonio Lopez]

Landscape Plants for California Gardens by Bob Perry. Bob Perry was a professor of mine at Cal Poly Pomona last year. This is the greatest book for California Plants. It has all of the climate zones, water needs, plant factors, Eto calculations and sections of plant palettes with plants that work well together. An amazing book. It was great to have him sign my copy.

[Author]

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