Must-Have Garden Guide: "Foliage" by Nancy Ondra

by Steve and Cathy Wieder 

As a couple, we generally have very different taste in books, even books about gardening. Rarely do we collaborate as much on a blog post or a book review as we did on this one and in this instance we are of one mind.

Nancy Ondra’s Foliage is one book that we both feel is a “must have” that should find its way onto every gardener’s book shelf. 

Once again, Nancy has partnered with horticultural photographer Rob Cardillo. The result of this all-star collaboration is a premier foliage design bible and a true feast for the eyes. His vibrant photographs of each plant add a stunning visual accompaniment to the text.

Many of the photographs show the featured plant highlighted in one of Nancy's well thought out, mature garden beds. In photographs that capture the play of light in very varied gardenscapes, he demonstrates the contribution of individual plants within a complex design. 

We purchased this book earlier this spring when we began designing and planting a shade foliage bed. We sought guidance and design ideas to enhance the handful of heucheras, hostas and ferns we had already set into the bed.  We got that and more. We now have a plethora of ideas for our foliage bed but more importantly, we have come to view our other beds in a new and broader way.

Historically, the traditional focus in the decorative garden has been on the color and bloom time of flowers. Except in the case of ground covers, in most traditional gardens, foliage has been a secondary and largely ignored consideration.  This book turns that gardening philosophy on its head and brings the foliage front and center.

What sets Foliage apart from other gardening books we’ve read is that this book is not a didactic lecture about foliage or an alphabetized compendium of plant descriptions. It’s an intimate conversation with someone whose encyclopedic knowledge and love of foliage and gardening shines through in every paragraph.

Not only is this book extremely well-written and comprehensive, there is a very personal quality to the writing. She writes to the reader, and to readers of every skill set and gardening style and preference.

Her intimate knowledge of every plant, from having grown and watched them over time, suffuses the writing.  She uses adjectives in a way that brings her vivid descriptions to life as easily and as brilliantly as the photographs do.  

The book opens with excellent introductory information about a wide range of considerations when looking at foliage in the garden, from plant selection, to leaf characteristics, to leaf diseases. She follows that with a carefully compiled and researched description of each plant. 

Foliage is a goldmine of color and texture for the garden, organized in a garden-friendly way. Listed first by color (do you want gold, blue, purple, or red in the foliage?) and then by leaf type (do you want fine feathery leaves or something spiky or large and bold?), she has foliage plant options for every nook and cranny of your garden.

As she does in her other equally excellent books, she includes growing tips that she has gleaned from decades of experience and she includes alternatives for creating a similar look with different plants for different hardiness zones and light and shade requirements.  

Scattered through the book are tables that are comprehensive and very helpful, and not just your basic list of plants.

For a novice, the tables provide a user friendly guide for making choices based on whether you are looking for a sun or shade plant with foliage in any color and leaf texture.

Our favorite is a table in her “What’s in a Name” series of tables in which she lists and explains words included in a plant’s name that indicate that the foliage may be variegated or unique in some other way.

Nan Ondra demonstrates in a dramatic and concrete way that color enhances texture and texture enhances color.

By looking at foliage in the context of a garden bed, rather than by focusing exclusively on individual plants, she encourages the reader and gardener to expand their perspective to consider and appreciate the plant as it visually relates to everything around it.

This book illustrates how the contribution of foliage to the richness of a garden bed fulfills the maxim that "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."  In each chapter and in each color grouping, she combines plants with different growth habits, height, leaf types, and colors to create a dramatic visual impact.  

Foliage offers a different kind of palette for the decorative gardener. What we have taken from this book is an expanded focus that extends beyond the short bloom season of our many perennials to encompass those aspects of the plants that embody the ongoing contribution of each to the garden as a whole.

We now have an enhanced appreciation for foliage as a source of visual interest and complexity throughout the growing season and into the fall and winter. In so doing, despite the changing seasons in New England, our garden can “bloom” year round.


Foliage is available in both hardcover and paperback at Amazon.com.