No comments about Huntleyas and Related Orchids.

5 comments about Easy Orchids: Simple Secrets for Glorious Gardens--Indoors and Out.

1. I am notorious among my friends and family for killing plants in no time. Yet, I got this book as a gift along with an orchid (they thought if I was given directions for use, that one plant stood a better chance...:)
   Not only did the plant make it beautifully, and re-bloom, but I now own and enjoy a few more orchid plants.
   This book is a great basic for your orchid library. Granted, it doesn't cover all the topics you want to know about(plant diseases for example). However, it is very invaluable and even though I now own more orchid books, I find myself getting back to this one quite often for information.
   It is not intimidating, very easy to follow and an excellent introduction to a great family of plants, too often inaccurately labeled as fragile and needy.
   I warmly recommend it to anyone getting started with orchids.
   This book paired with an orchid plant is one of the greatest gifts I ever received...



2. What a great orchid book. I'm a beginner, but I'll use it forever. Absolutely wonderful photos and references. I saved an orchid using instructions in this book. I recommend it, especially at this great price.



3. This book was easy to read and had lots of beautiful orchid pictures. However, there the book is very lacking in stucture. It simply goes through different types of orchids and meanwhile gives you tips on watering, fertilizing, etc. as you go. I have read a few other orchid books and this just seems to be a conglomeration of the useful hints and tips I've found in those. For a much more useful book try Ortho's All About Orchids.



4. There are a lot of orchid books but I guess I found a good one for her :)My mother really likes orchids and grows them. I wanted to get her an orchid book that had great photos, good recommendations and ideas, had different thing that she could look at. She loved it and raved about it!!



5. I was really hoping for something that went into detailed potting care and lighting. The book also recommends some plants for the windowsill that, in my opinion, need more attention than your average windowsill grower gives. The pictures are nice but it just wasn't the information I was hoping for.

1 comments about 100 Orchids for Florida.

1. The book may be small in size, but it is filled with a lot of information. Easy reading, lovely photos. Gave one to another new orchid enthusiast friend. Great reference book. I highly recommend it to all orchid lovers.

No comments about Wild Orchids in Myanmar Vol. 1: Last Paradise of Wild Orchids (Wild Orchids in Myanmar: Last Paradise of Wild Orchids).

3 comments about Orchidelirium.

1. I bought this book for my brother for his birthday. He was floored by its beauty.
   Kay Martin



2. This book has stunning photographs of all kinds of orchids. If you like the front cover, you are sure to like this book. The book is large, not only coffee-table size, but also very thick (and heavy!). With the gorgeous pictures, it would make a wonderful gift for any orchid lover. Unfortunately I haven't seen the main competition, the book "Orchids" so I can't say how they compare, but I can't imagine going wrong with this book.



3. my mom loves it. beautiful images. great gift idea.

5 comments about Orchid Growing for Wimps: Techniques for the "Wish I Could Do That" Gardener.

1. While this book is easy to read, and covers many of the basics, and does recommend many easy to grow orchids, it is much too limited in application. If you are an orchid beginner and an apartment dweller in New York City, this is the perfect book for you and most everything applies to your situation. If are an orchid beginner that lives in a house in a warmer climate, some of the advice is just plain poor.

   A comfortable, pretty book, but not for everyone.




2. I received an orchid plant a few years back and was afraid of loving it to death (ie: overwatering, overfertilizing, etc.) Happily, it seems to do quite fine, but I wanted to know when to repot it, how to get it to bloom with the most possible blossoms and how to care for it-aside from just keeping it alive. This book was VERY helpful, and I am the ultimate in Orchid wimps. The pictures helped me to match up what kind of plants I could buy that would do well in my home and had a great section on pests, diseases and interesting tips on how to make it a "humidity bath", and what is normal (big fat white roots, growing all crazy-like out of the top....normal (who knew?) ). It is a book for the novice, the wimp, the "please, hold my hand and tell me everything," kind of orchid grower....of which I am....and thankful that someone put it all in words for me. It will also let you branch out to other types once you get your "orchid growing chops"....and there are plenty of different varieties to try. So, take the plunge, get the book and learn to grow beautiful orchids.



3. I was the ultimate orchid wimp, a complete novice, when a friend sent me an encyclia last summer, and I panicked. I bought the Ortho orchid book, and tried to find a decent place for my plant, then went so far as to buy two more orchids - NOT knowing they were ones that needed the exact opposite treatment from the first. And THEN the same friend moved, and had some careless friends crate up 14 of her orchids and ship them off to ME! They arrived in terrible condition, having fallen out of their pots, leaves crushed, roots torn, a MESS. I had no space, no good light for them, not enough humidity, NOTHING.
   Well, enter Orchid Growing for Wimps. It gave me not only information but confidence. In particular, I commend it for having pictures of the complete plants, not just the flowers. It really shows you how to perform many necessary tasks, gives good tips on care of many common types of orchids. It convinced me at last that I'd better splurge and buy a large, lighted case for my babies, and they are now quite happy and doing well.
   My only complaint, and it is unrealistic, is that this book doesn't cover all the thousands of varieties and their sometimes highly speccialized culture. The remedy for that is - MORE BOOKS, never a bad thing!
   But if you can only buy one book, this one may be the most helpful one you can find.

   review by Janet Knori, author of Awakening In God




4. I've read a lot of confusing books on orchid growing as well as some very good ones like Understanding Orchids. this book is conveniently short and clear with excellent charts, great pictures easy descriptions. I found of everything I have read that this one gave me the confidence and actually repot, prune and relocate my outdoor Florida orchids. I finally feel confident that I know what I am doing. I gave it five stars because it was the star in the crown of what I read but I feel that you still need to read Understanding Orchids as well to have it all.



5. This book is easy to understand with lots of detail. Good to have as reference.

5 comments about Masdevallias: Gems of the Orchid World.

1. This is a great refence book for growers of Masdevallias, it is easy to read and it has up to date information. Thanks Mary Gerritsen and Ron Parsons for all of the work that you put into this book.
   
   C. Wyatt
   San Francisco



2. This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in Masdevallias or those who love orchids in general. I feel this book fills a long standing void of books dedicated to the genus Masdevallia. The book contains detailed information on the history, natural distribution, cultivation, taxonomy of the subgenera, as well as information on propagation and showing masdevallias. There are 100's of beautiful photographs of the many species with information for each species photographed. There is also a section on hybridisation accompanied with many more colour photographs. I believe this book will be a longstanding 'Bible' to the genus for years to come. Highly recommended.



3. I can't say enough positive things about this book. The wisdom of some of the top masdevallia growers was sought out and compiled in one place. Excellent photos, solid text, and a useful list of the top growers and contact information for them. I was able to reach two of the top growers who live in my area and find out what orchid shows they would be attending. That allowed me to expand my collection with some awesome new plants. Buy this book, you won't regret it.



4. A great book for anyone interested in growing Masdevallias, regardless of skill / experience. There's plenty of useful tips in the cultural descriptions that go with each species photo, and I learned that they're a much more diverse genera than I had imagined. Many can also tolerate surprisingly cool temperatures (useful for me in the Netherlands), although those that can tolerate warmer temperatures are also covered, as are some common hybrids. The photos are excellent and the layout is pretty good too (species are grouped alphabetically, I would prefer by subgenera). The section describing the geography of each country where they occur is interesting, but too general to be of any real use (how many Masdevallias occur in the Peruvian desert?). Orchids don't recognize country boundaries, it would IMHO have been better to focus this section on the different microclimates in the geographical areas where they do occur (e.g. the Andes between 800m and 3500m). These minor details aside, this is a great book and good value.



5. Bought this book right before the 2008 Pacific Orchid Exposition in San Francisco. The photos and text were great, but the tables at the end were even more useful for shopping at the Expo. The tables list the species and hybrids with their growing temperatures. If I can grow these plants in Nevada with 13% humidity, so can you!

4 comments about Orchids as House Plants.

1. There's a large section here on growing orchids under artificial lights including home-made set ups and commercially available light stands and wardian cases. The book needs a resource listing as to where to purchase the light stands and recommendations on how to build your own. Half of the book lists generalizations of the different orchid families and how to care for them, but even that is only touched upon. The author goes into detail on the description of the flowers and leaves, but not much info on the care. An example of this is "bright light, warm temperatures, and plenty of water and humidity" to describe the care of Ascocentrum orchids. This doesn't tell us how much is needed which I think is important since "warm" can be anywhere from 50-90 degrees.



2. After doing research on the internet and libraries, my questions were not answered until I read this book. Wanting instant gratification I went directly to the index which gave me the areas to read that I needed. The book explains how to pot, water and fertilize quickly with less anxiety. It gives pictures of many orchids, their colors, sizes and needs. I recommend this book highly and my next purchase is a deep purple Denrrobium phalaenopsis.



3. Good book, optimum status, author is well knowed and always attendible.
   Only more color photos could be better.



4. I bought this book for my mom who recently received a beautiful orchid plant. Anyone who has seen an orchid knows COLOR is one of the important factors in an orchid and to see the pictures in this book illustrated in B/W is a huge disappointment. The price was right but the product wasn't.

5 comments about Complete Guide to Orchids (Ortho Books).

1. This book is great for beginners and those who don't have a green thumb. Growing orchids takes some patience, but with armed with knowledge beforehand, you too can grow these enchanting flowers!



2. I have been an orchid addict for as long as I can remember. I started raising native orchids in the early 80's in my country of birth, the Philippines, using the trial-and-error method. My backyard venture was successful but it could have been so much better if a guide book, such as Ortho's Complete Guide to Orchids, had been easily available then. (There would have been less plant casualties.)
   
   This is a must-have guide book for orchid lovers, from novice to intermediate levels, who WILL benefit from its general information on orchid selection, cultural requirement, diseases, etc. I have given copies of this book to some of my family and my friends who have contracted my "addiction" to orchids.



3. This is a very nice book for someone that is new to orchids. Very helpful to properly take care of my new plant.



4. I'm not at all into the history of the man-made orchid hybrids and cultivars, for which the authors this book have a strong affinity. Expect frequent plugs for the AOS (American Orchid Society). This book has the same "pretty picture and overly general advice" formula that you can get in every other book for beginning orchid owners (or better yet, for free, on the web). I prefer Cullina's book in general, and something like Botanica's orchids as a reference for more species-specific care guidelines. In the end, I think its pretty unreasonable to make sweeping care recommendations about orchid genera, which often have 1,000+ species from a wide variety of habitats. But, I suppose this book is just as good as any other beginner guide- though others may be cheaper, and the web is cheaper (and better) still.



5. I originally borrowed this book from the library and found so many helpful bits of info that I had to buy it for myself for future reference. It just seems that I can't go wrong if I buy Ortho books. I highly recommend it for Orchid lover beginners - there's just so much very needed and useful info when it comes to orchids.

5 comments about Botanica's Orchids: Over 1200 Species (Botanica's Gardening Series) (Botanica's Gardening).

1. It's an excellent book and it tells a lot of all kind of orchids. It's easy to take to the orchidshop to buy new plants.
   
   This is one of the orchidbooks that anyone who loves orchids should have.



2. Though over 1200 species is a lot of orchids to be growing in the same conditions and in the same house (or greenhouse), this Masterpiece Book of the orchids culture is all that an orchid grower have ever expected.
   And the most important fact is that all the orchids been shown here have the proper scientific name according to Royal Botanic Garden, Kew. Alejandro Taborda, ARGENTINA.



3. This book is too big for your pocket and way too small for a normall read. I gave it a few days but just couldn't get used to squinting. Regardless of how much good info it may contain, its just too painfull. By the way I have 20-20 vision... I was so annoyed by the miniature font that I decided to return it.



4. This is a well-made, easy-size-to-hold book with lots of pictures and lots of information. Very useful!



5. Tons of species information is packed into this book. Not much information is provided on hybrids of those species though. No book can possibly list them all, but this one certainly comes close. The book is compact and wouldn't be much trouble to carry along to a nursery or show. It is however quite thick! The only drawback is that the binding leaves a bit to be desired. Due to the thickness of the book, trying to hold it open far enough to read the text near the center can be a challenge. Keep a book mark handy or use the cover flap to keep your page, this book will not stay open if you set it down.