For those who dislike the upkeep of a carefully manicured lawn, a meadow garden might be as nice an option as all those wood-chip landscapes that have been cropping up in town. Attracting butterflies, birds and bees, meadow gardens (or grassy gardens) do not have to be on large acreage; they can be hidden away in back corners or on postage-stamp-sized lots, creating teeny oases in the midst of brick and concrete. The American Meadow Garden describes every type of grass that can grow in North American climates, and in its chapter on "purposeful" meadows - those that will help solve particular gardening problems - the grasses are listed in helpful bars by purpose and colour, while the bars in the design chapter list grasses by cover (ground, vertical and background), and for further effects, like fragrance or flowering. This chapter also contains lists of grasses by growing height and microclimate, as well as further descriptions of the plethora of flowers that do well in meadows, such as Japanese anemone, columbine, and oddly striking, clematis that crawls over fescue grasses. The appropriately-named author (Greenlee) has included a very helpful index, and a gorgeous portfolio of existing meadow gardens and meadow gardens to visit (in the United States). For getting started on designing your own meadow, Greenlee has also created a colour-coded lettering system so choosing accent or filler-grasses is quite simple, and has thorough instructions on developing that design (the list of 'wicked weeds' is particularly helpful), and maintaining it once it is started. There are colour-saturated photos of meadows, flowers and designs on nearly every page, making the The American Meadow Garden a wonderful book to help wile away the hours in the dead of winter.