No comments about Trees and Shrubs: Illustrated A-Z of over 8500 Plants.

1 comments about Making Glorious Gifts from Your Garden.

1. I recently purchased this book, and upon a more thorough review at home, discovered just how marvelous it was! The book is great because it gives you a diverse selection of projects from using herbs, to pressing flowers, to making oils, to making gifts from things in your garden, to culinary crafting...I could go on and on. Also, the instructions are very simple and easy to follow and there are very nice, very clear photos for referal. This is the book for the person who likes to do more than one thing, not just focus on one type of craft.

No comments about The Little Book of Slugs.

1 comments about The Critter Control Handbook: Pro Secrets for Stopping Sneaky Squirrels and Other Crafty Critters in Their Tracks.

1. The Critter Control Handbook: Pro Secrets For Stopping Sneaky Squirrels & Other Crafty Critters In Their Tracks by Dan "The Critter Man" Hershey is the testimony of an expert with 20 years of experience as a licensed Nuisance Wildlife Control Officer. Individual chapters address how to identify a creature control problem, evaluating whether or not a contractor is necessary, and a wide variety of means to keep animals at bay from fencing and repellents to lethal traps and hunting. Of particular interest is the lengthy and informative section devoted to a long list of pest animals ranging from bees and wasps to squirrels and woodchucks. If you have a problem with nuisance creatures, The Critter Control Handbook is a "must" to learn about practical, effective (and sometimes surprising) solutions!

No comments about The Complete Encyclopedia of Garden Plants.

5 comments about Perennials (DK Garden Guides).

1. What makes this book so terrific is the way it's laid out. Plants are grouped by size, season of bloom, and color. For example, you want to find a tall yellow plant that blooms in summer. Just turn to the part of the book that says, "Tall, summer interest," and look for the yellow flowers grouped together. Then choose from among those possibilities something that will grow in your garden. Every plant is further described for hardiness, care, use, and propagation. Further, it is not limited to a few selected plants, but is quite complete. The only perennial that I could think of not mentioned was lavender.



2. As a new homeowner, I was looking for a book that would give me some basic information about perennials, including some good choices to add to my new garden. While this book certainly provides many varieties to choose from, I often couldn't find information on those perennials that were already in my yard! Definitely for the advanced perennial gardener.



3. This is a workhouse reference, filled from cover to cover with solid information. Entries start with family name, common name where applicable, and botanical name of the plant under discussion. Each variety has a picture, a description of form, flowers, and leaves, plus notes on the plant's origins, growing requirements, and propagation. The pictures themselves are relatively small but well shot, a good percentage of them include leaves and/or clumps of plants as well the flowers themselves.

   This book covers all of the basics normally found in a plant reference, including propagation, maintenance care, and basic planting principals. The layout, however, betrays its real focus, which is landscaping.

   Landscaping and cultivation are so closely tied that many gardeners forget the difference. However, one focuses on growing a single plant to its maximum potential while the other concerns itself with presenting plants in a setting. Whereas a book on cultivation will present species either alphabetically or by color, this book presents flowers in terms of their 'social' attributes: Size, season, and color.

   Bottom line: Excellent perusing material for people who like to plan ahead. It includes all the basics of cultivation, and pulls it together in a format designed to help you think in terms of beds rather than just flowers.




4. The photos are beautiful, and I love the organization by size, color, and season of interest, but good luck finding most of these at the nursery -- common names are provided for maybe one-fourth of the plants, and when a common name is given, it may not be the name you're familiar with. I would like to have lots of these plants in my garden, but I don't know what to look for at the nursery. And I don't think the workers at my local nurseries are going to know what, say, "phlomis russeliana" is, even if I tell them it's in the family "Lamiacae/Labiatae" (assuming I could pronounce half this stuff!)

   Or let's say you want to look at a certain plant, maybe one you've spotted at the nursery, to see whether it's right for you. Let's use "yarrow" as an example. "Yarrow" is not in the table of contents or the index, but if you happen to know that yarrow is "achillea", you will find several different yarrows in this book. None of them list "yarrow" as a common name, but that's what all the nurseries around here call them. And even though there's a 7-page section on peonies, "peony" is not in the index (you have to know it's really "paeonia").

   The sections on landscaping, propogation, planting, etc., are minimal -- the catalog of plants is the focus of the book.

   In short, I think the presentation of plants in this book is a great idea that has not been implemented fully enough to be useful.




5. Eyewitness Handbooks are simply the best. I have several, including one on horses, aquarium fish and the annuals/biennials garden book. (I'm planning to purchase the other Eyewitness Garden Handbooks shortly.) There is just no substitute for seeing a full color picture of the adult plant. Although quite comprehensive (over 1000 photos and plants), it was organized by the size of the plant (large, medium, small) and then the season of bloom. I'm probably spoiled with computer CD ROMs that are searchable by any criteria: I wanted to find plants based on recommended sun exposure. But this wasn't really a big problem for me. Besides the beautiful clear photograhy, one of its best features was the index. It was basically organized by the scientific names, but the common names were also listed, with a "see ...." reference. This is not always the case in plant/animal books, and I appreciated it very much. I recommend that you buy this book. There's nothing better, unless Eyewitness comes out with a searchable CD ROM.

No comments about Water Gardener.

1 comments about Color Atlas of Turfgrass Diseases.

1. I bought this book hoping to increase my knowledge of turf grass disease identification. The book is very in depth and informative but most of the pictures are from golf courses in Japan. Since most of the disease I see is on residential properties, they dont look anything like the pictures in the book. Most of those were taken on putting greens on Japanese bent grass. Its a good book, but not if your working with tall fescue.

5 comments about Botanica: The Illustrated A-Z of Over 10,000 Garden Plants and How to Cultivate Them.

1. This book is excellent! It covers almost very plant you can think of - and many more! It covers everything you need to know before you consider buying, planting...

   My friends always want to borrow this, so I have 2 copies. That way I am sure that I will never be without it.

   This is a great single source book! If you can only buy one- THIS IS IT!




2. Working in a small plant nursery, we depend on this book for everything it seems. Many of our customers are new to the area and know only common names for what they're looking for. We've used this book extensively to find these plants. In fact, we've used it so much that this is the second copy we're ordering, having worn out the first! No garden center or gardener should be without this incredible book.



3. I'm a garden designer and couldn't do without it. Every garden centre I know also has a copy. The Zone guides have always been exactly right based on my experience. Highly recommended.
   (I also own and use our local edition of the AHS Encyclopedia which Amazon sell but it is slightly older so doesn't have as many new varieties - still a great book)



4. I purchased this book as "The Plant Book" on sale for $19.99 at Borders books & music in 2004. It is interesting to note that the introduction _How This Book Works_ still uses the title "Botanica".

   This book has tons of pictures that are veritable eye candy, but their usefulness varies. Some of the pictures are not close-up enough to identify small details of the plants and others are so close-up that you can't tell the overall growth form of the plant. Ideally, it would be nice to have several pictures at different scales (e.g. close up views of flowers and leaves at several angles and pictures of the whole plant). However, inclusion of more pictures probably would have made the book too big to transport.

   When trying to identify unknown plants it is nice to have the plants organized by generic name, when you know the genus. However, it can make identifying the plant frustrating when you run into a plant that you know which family, but not which genus it belongs to. In such cases, a book with keys and organization by family is more useful (e.g. Liberty Hyde Bailey's Manual of Cultivated Plants). However, this book's color pictures and quantity of plants nicely compliments books such as Bailey's Manual of Cultivated Plants as well as local flora manuals such as The Jepson Manual.

   I haven't used the book enough yet to judge the accuracy of its information.




5. Botanica is one of my favorite reference books, it's got great pictures and so many unusual plants. I also own the American Horticultural Society's A-Z Encyclopedia, but I never use it. Botanica is written in clear, common English, gets me excited about the plants, and gives me an intuitive feel for the plants. A-Z is a dry, scholarly compendium and an excellent doorstop.
   
   One problem with Botanica is the binding. It's been through many different publishers, but every well-used copy I see is held together with strapping tape.
   
   I find the zone recommendations dead on, but maybe that's because one of the editors lives in my town. But don't worry, I've only met him once and he had had no influence on this review.

No comments about The Everything Gardening Book: Grow Beautiful Flowers, Delicious Vegetables, and Healthy Herbs--Right in Your Own Backyard (Everything: Sports and Hobbies).