Rodale's Weekend Gardener: Create a Low-Maintenance Landscape to Enjoy Year-Round

Can home owners create an interesting, satisfying landscape without the support of an army of gardening help and while maintaining a life outside their garden? The answer from Hynes, coauthor of Great Garden Shortcuts (1996), who admits to spending most of her days ""earning a living, raising a child, doing volunteer work,"" is an unequivocal yes. After enumerating the most energy-intensive gardening chores, she suggests solutions for minimizing such tasks as watering, mowing, weeding and fertilizing. Hynes also urges readers to lighten their workload in the section ""Picking Unpicky Plants."" Her comprehensively annoted list of such plants includes annual, perennial and biennial flowers, ground covers, grasses, trees and shrubs, and some of the less demanding varieties of vegetables. No aspect of gardening is too insignificant for her attention, as in the reminder that mowing a lawn next to a perennial border is easier if the flower bed has curved rather than straight edges. Also included are plans for such weekend building projects as planters and window boxes, trellises, compost bins, walkways and patios. Hynes's chatty, personable prose adds stylistic appeal to her sound and practical advice. (Mar.)