Even beginner gardeners can select plants to create a stunning garden as unique as the Carolinas - with expert help to ensure success!

Carolinas Getting Started Garden Guide is a plant selection guide, perfect for when you're choosing plants and starting a garden in a climate that can be as challenging as it is beautiful. Choose the right plants and care for them properly with help from an expert. Toby Bost, one of the area's most highly respected and experienced gardeners, shares his deep knowledge of the region, gardens, and plants in a lively, upbeat style.

The author's top picks for plants that will thrive in (or in spite of) the Carolina's heat, humidty, coastal conditions, clay and sandy loam soils, and other unique growing conditions guarantee success for the area gardeners and home landscapers. Plants are divided into easy-to-browse chapters, including Annuals, Bulbs, Groundcovers, Ornamental Grasses, Perennials, Shrubs, Trees, Lawns, and Vines. Each plant is highlighted in its respective chapter with a large full-color photograph and tips on how, when, and where to plant.

Carolinas Getting Started Garden Guide doesn't stop at plant selection. Methods for preparing soil, watering, fertilizer application, and pest management are also covered in detail. Along with the "nitty-gritty" of tending your garden, Toby shares his inspiration for garden design, offers ways to incorporate your plants into the landscape, and names some favorite cultivars or species. His sound, practical advice is clothed in beautiful descriptions of each plant that will inspire you to get your hands dirty!

As field faculty emeritus, Toby Bost is best known for his thirty-one years as a horticulturist and Extension Agent with the NC Cooperative Extension Service. For more than two decades, he recruited and certified more than 400 Master Gardeners in Durham and Forsyth counties, appearing frequently in the media as a gardening educator. He has been a garden writer for several newspapers and magazines, including Carolina Gardener and Our State. Many landscape professionals have attended the programs he developed to assist them with licensure in myriad trade associations. For six years, he was director of the Arboretum at Tanglewood Park.

Toby continues to dedicate his time to helping gardeners conquer stubborn clay soils and grow healthy lawns and gardens as both a volunteer mentor and consultant. He is an adjunct instructor at the local community college in the horticulture department. He is the author of North Carolina Gardener’s Guide and co-author of Carolinas Gardener’s Guide; co-editor of The Successful Gardeners Guide: North Carolina by Blair Publishing; and co-author of Carolinas Gardener’s Handbook by Cool Springs Press.

Toby and his wife, Becky, reside in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where they serve in leadership at their church. In his leisure time, Toby enjoys golf, fishing, and of course, the joy of gardening.