Tracy DiSabato-Aust – The Queen of Deadheading - has taught me, and a great many other gardeners, how to keep gardens looking sharp and well-cared for.

 She’s the author of The Well-Designed Mixed Garden and The Well-Tended Perennial Garden, which is the best-selling title under the Timber publishing imprint and widely considered the bible of perennial maintenance.

She’s taken a different tack with her latest book, 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants. All the plants are show-stoppers, but they have another advantage. They have passed Tracy’s test for toughness, beauty and durability.

These are plants for the busy gardener who doesn’t have time for staking or heavy fertilizing, wants lots of blooms and doesn’t need anything that has to be babied through a hot August.

Among her choices are a couple of my favorites from my own garden: Gateway Joe Pye weed, with its beautiful cloud like pink masses that tower 5 feet high in my garden, the delicate blue false indigo, and hellebores, which are producing lovely flowers right now.

The author suggests a plant that went right onto my list of “plants I want to order.” That’s Acanthus spinosus, Spiny bear’s breeches, shown here.

Cover photographs by Dianna Jazwinski, Richard Bloom and Adrian Bloom. Author photograph by Deb Goff.

Additional photo by Richard Bloom from 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants, Timber Press 2009