by Bob Walch

Why should your puttering in the garden be confined to the spring and summer when autumn has so much to offer? In addition to the rainbow of foliage colors, there are a whole range of beautiful blooms, flashy fruits and berries, and showy seed heads that can make your landscaping scheme a pleasure to behold. Toss in the Coastside weather in September, October and November — some of the best weather we have — and it’s obvious fall is a great time to be out in the garden.

Fallscaping (Storey Publishing, $22.95 paper) by Nancy Ondra and Stephanie Cohen shows you how to get the most out of your fall garden with vines, shrubs, trees and flowers that will retain their good looks through the sweet, golden and warm days (and cool nights) of autumn.

The authors identify all the fall-specific players and explain how to combine them with multiseason workhorse plants to create gardens from spring through the riotous (and often overcast) days of summer and deep into the sunny days of fall.

Ten complete garden plans that combine flowers, trees, shrubs, ground covers and grasses are featured in this beautifully illustrated book, so you have plenty of ideas to work with. There’s also a Fall Garden Care Primer that offers tips and techniques on how to plant and transplant, stake and prune, and maintain gardens all year long.

Pay close attention to the diagrams and instructions contained in this helpful garden guide and you’ll be on your way to creating a doorway garden, a wall climbing arrangement, container plantings or a foundation border that will be the envy of the neighborhood.

The handy “shopping list” will make selecting the right plants a breeze, and will also enable you to make the wise choices that help your dollars go farther.