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If you like making things for your garden, you'll love concrete. Durable, beautiful, and inexpensive, it's also surprisingly simple to work with. Best of all, it weathers elegantly, softening around the edges to become more picturesque with age.

Concrete Garden Projects offers up an inspiring array of creative projects that can be made for next to nothing. Follow the easy, step-by-step instructions to make containers of all sizes, benches and stools, ponds and birdbaths, pavers and stepping stones — and even a barbecue.

At pennies per pound, you can't beat concrete's price. And the molds for the projects (like bowls and baking pans) can often already be found in your house.

For elegant, individual, garden décor, don't spend a fortune, just mix and pour.

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Dry shade: the words alone are enough to strike fear in the heart of the most intrepid gardener. Even worse is the reality of dry shade — dusty, root-choked soil coupled with an all-pervasive gloom, the kind of conditions where large trees or sun-blocking structures wreak havoc on your gardening space.

By understanding the problem, and then using techniques to take the edge off drought and poor light, you can garden successfully — even splendidly — in areas that once looked like a lost horticultural cause.

In this book you'll discover how to prune selectively to admit more light and how to fix the soil so that it holds more water. You'll also learn about more than 130 plants that do fine with reduced light and moisture levels—long-blooming woodland gems like epimediums and hellebores, and even lush foliage plants like evergreen ferns and bear's breeches.

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People everywhere are facing the realities of restricted water availability. Yet sustainable gardens and landscapes that use less water don't have to be boring. The key to keeping your garden beautiful and waterwise is intelligent plant choice.

This practical and inspiring guide includes all kinds of plants — from trees to succulents, from perennials to bulbs — selected for their wide adaptability and ornamental value. And whereas most books on drought-tolerant plants focus on southwestern, high desert, or Mediterranean climates, the Ogdens cover both humid and arid parts of zones 4 to 10 and offer choices for gardens from coast to coast.

Each of the 200 entries states where the plant is best adapted, along with its light needs, soil preference, and mature size. Well over 100 related waterwise plants are also mentioned, expanding your options even further. What's more, the authors tell why each plant deserves to be in gardens and suggest creative design ideas and good companion plants.

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With their colorful leaves, sculptural shapes, and simple care, succulents are beautiful yet forgiving plants for pots. If grown in containers, these dry-climate jewels — which include but are not limited to cacti — can be brought indoors in winter and so can thrive anywhere in the world.

In this inspiring compendium, the popular author of Designing with Succulents provides everything beginners and experienced gardeners need to know to create stunning container displays of exceptionally waterwise plants. The extensive palette includes delicate sedums, frilly echeverias, cascading senecios, edgy agaves, and fat-trunked beaucarneas, to name just a few. Easy-to-follow, expert tips explain soil mixes, overwintering, propagation, and more.

Define your individual style as you effectively combine patterns, colors, textures, and forms. Discover how top designers interpret the dramatic options, in ideas ranging from exquisite plant-and-pot combinations to extraordinary topiaries and bonsai. Expand your repertoire with plump-leaved plants that resemble pebbles, stars, and undersea creatures. Short on space? Create vertical gardens and hanging baskets, and use daisylike rosettes in wall displays.

Each of the more than 300 photographs offers an inspiring idea. A-to-Z descriptions cover 350 of the best succulents, plus companion plants. Whether your goal is a gorgeous potted garden for a sunny windowsill or outdoor living area — or simply making great gifts — this is a comprehensive primer for creating vibrant, living works of art.

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This is a practical and engaging guide to transforming an ordinary backyard into a productive farm.

Homesteading is experiencing a revival among both rural and urban residents who want to get back to basics and live closer to the land. With this book, homeowners will obtain both inspiration and instruction for transforming their grassy yard into a lush farm that can produce all the food they need.

The author is an experienced woodworker and homesteader who shows how to plan and design a backyard farm. He offers expert advice for making all of the essential hard-working structures that are needed to sustain small-scale agriculture.

Step-by-step instructions are provided for 10 projects including green houses, beehives, rabbit hutches, raised beds, potting sheds, trellises, fences, and more. Readers learn how to create an irrigation system, harvest rainwater, and keep their farms environmentally sound. Each detailed plan is accompanied by the author's clear, instructive drawings.

More than just a manual, the book also offers entertaining and enlightening interviews with both experts and “average Joe” farmers. We learn what motivates them to become backyard farmers, the lessons that they have to share, and maybe even a couple of funny stories along the way.

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This Can't Miss title captures the ingenuity and simplicity necessary for gardening in small spaces. Written by one of America's most popular gardening experts, Melinda Myers, Small Space Gardening provides "Can't Miss" advice for success. It's the perfect book for gardeners with small lots, or those desiring an intimate garden within a larger landscape. Small Space Gardening is a national title, covering a range of small space gardening topics, such as:

• Growing gardens and landscapes in limited space
• Layering and growing vertically
• Suggestions for dwarf plant
• Using containers as accents
• Maintenance of a densely planted landscape
• Lighting, water features, and irrigation for small spaces
• Emphasis on minimal work and maximum enjoyment.

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You don't need a sprawling backyard or spacious raised beds to grow delicious fruits, vegetables and herbs of your own. In The Edible Balcony, longtime urban gardener Alex Mitchell shows how to transform whatever space you have, from a balcony or rooftop to a fire escape or window box, into a profusion of fresh, seasonal produce.

While raising your own produce is eco-friendly in itself, you’ll learn how to plant, grow and water as sustainably as possible to ensure your edible Eden remains green and productive all year long. Plus, with a collection of innovative, step-by-step projects for designing colorful pots and plant supports with recycled containers and other household paraphernalia, you’ll double your eco-friendliness, avoid hours of shopping, and be able to infuse your space with your own personal flair and style. Who knew saving time, money and the environment could be so much fun?

A collection of practical advice, fabulous container projects, and stunning examples of how gardeners around the world are successfully transforming urban spaces into abundant fruit and vegetable plots, The Edible Balcony is your guide to creating attractive, responsible and thoroughly rewarding small space gardens—and perhaps never having to settle for grocery store produce again.

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Luscious peaches, crisp apples, and sweet plums right off the tree are hard to beat.

For gardeners yearning for the pleasures of home-grown fruit plucked straight from the tree, this deliciously encouraging guide cuts the subject down to size. Colby Eierman, garden designer and fruit expert, shows how trees can easily be tucked into the tiniest spots and still yield a bumper crop of gorgeous fruit.

Fruit Trees in Small Spaces covers everything a gardener needs to know about choosing and nurturing the most delicious small-space varieties, including selection, pruning, training, irrigation, and disease prevention. With inspiring ideas for spaces of all shapes and sizes and creative recipes for your incredible harvest, you'll want to plant a mini-orchard in every intimate corner.

For the gardener with space limitations, bountiful fruit trees are now within arm's reach.

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There are around 16,000 species of bee. Only seven of these are responsible for creating the world's sweetest treat -- honey. Combining Ilona's gorgeous photography and E. Readicker-Henderson's engaging text, A Short History of the Honey Bee follows the journey from flower to hive to honey throughout history.

A Short History of the Honey Bee starts with the story of the honey bee -- why it is named Apis mellifera, how it has evolved from a solitary creature to one that travels in groups, why it stings, and how pollination really works. Readicker-Henderson then moves on to the honey, detailing its history from a wild food foraged for on cliffs to the many varieties available for purchase today. But it is the everyday importance of the bee that remains the central message. Forty percent of the world's food supply -- including apples, tomatoes, and strawberries -- is dependent on pollination by honeybees. Colony collapse, when the worker bees suddenly disappear and leave behind the queen and the hive, is an ecological and agricultural crisis. For this reason alone we need to be more aware of the significance of bees.