Flower Gardener's Bible

This book is a comprehensive guide to gardening. Part One, fully a third of the book, contains the how-tos of making your garden successful, from preparing the soil, to managing pests, to properly caring for and feeding your plants. Part Two, called the Gallery of Gardens, is all about designing your garden. It contains the cartoon drawings of specific kinds of gardens like you see in Sunset Magazine and Better Homes & Gardens magazine. Garden suggestions are provided for shade gardens, rock gardens, butterfly and bird gardens, cottage gardens, rose gardens, scent gardens, and about 16 other examples. Speaking of scent, this book really stinks; it smells like an unperfumed, industrial soap. I don't know if it came off the presses smelling this way, or if it was doctored later. The final third of the book is devoted to an alphabetical list of the typical plants you will find in different regions of America, lists of cultivars, discussions of their growing characteristics, and small-to quarter page photographs of species. And I do mean typical; there did not seem to be any plants or flowers that are out of the ordinary. Even ones that might sound unusual, like Chinese lantern, Heavenly bamboo, or Aztec lily (which is really just an amaryllis) are quite common in certain geographical areas in this country. I have at least a passing knowlege of nearly all of the plants in the book, and I figure that if I know them, they can't be that unusual. The main problem I have with this section, as in most flower books, is that the plants are listed in alphabetic order by their scientific names, which most people don't even know. One must continually be turning to the index in the back of the book when looking for a certain plant that you know only by its common name. That being said, this is a very useful compendium and better, I think, than many of the cheaper, more popular guides offered by such publishers as Better Homes & Gardens.

I was familiar with the book having previously borrowed one.Totally met my need to help me identify and select plants.

Very Good

Would have liked more information on annuals and perrenials that are more common in our area.Lovely book though.

I really like this book! Had gotten from the library, but decided to buy a copy as I'm still learning and it makes a good reference book...