The gardener's fantasy of colorful blooms that begin in early spring and continue through the last glow of fall is now an achievable reality. With a little careful planning and the fun-to-use formulas in "The Ever-Blooming Flower Garden," season-spanning spectacular color is more attainable than ever before. Author Lee Schneller developed her blueprint system when she began designing gardens professionally, and she has successfully applied it to more than 150 gardens. Now she brings her proven system to gardeners everywhere who continue to chase that elusive dream of perpetual bloom.Schneller's system is a wonder of organization and information - packed with checklists and questionnaires, planning equations and plant characteristics. Yet for all its wealth of information, gardeners of every level will find Schneller's techniques simple to use and her blueprints fun to customize. Readers choose from a list of 220 low-maintenance plants organized by bloom month and supported by a Flower Catalog with basic growing information and photos of all 220 plants. By following five simple steps, readers develop a unique garden design featuring personally chosen plants that deliver height, color, and tons of blooms all season long. For added convenience, the completed planning chart also serves as a plant shopping list.Once the blueprint has been created, Schneller helps readers put the plan to work, offering advice on shopping, planting, and finally, enjoying and maintaining the garden. Praise for the book: "The book lives up to its title: It is a blueprint for continuous color in the garden (at least from early spring to fall). There is instruction on mapping it all out on a grid -- and also instructions for those who don't want to put pen to paper. Don't be daunted; I'm not a mathematical person, but it makes sense to me. Lee Schneller, who has designed and built more than 150 gardens in Maine"