Hortica: Color Cyclopedia of Garden Flora and Indoor Plants

Hortica: Color Cyclopedia of Garden Flora and Indoor Plants
Average customer rating:

Hortica:color cyclopedia of garden flora in all climates and

Hortica: Color Cyclopedia of Garden Flora and Indoor Plants
Alfred Byrd Graf
Manufacturer: Roehrs Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Tropica: Color Cyclopedia of Exotic Plants and Trees for Warm-Region Horticulture in Cool Climate the Summer Garden or Sheltered Indoors

Tropical Plants for Home and Garden

Tropical Flowering Plants: A Guide to Identification and Cultivation

An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms

Tropical Garden Design

ASIN: 0911266259

Book Description

Alfred Byrd Graf is probably the most widely traveled plant explorer of the world's tropics and subtropics. Horticulturist, botanist, and professional photographer, he has roamed the earth in the spirit of Von Humboll, Darwin, and David Fairchild earlier in the 19th and 20th centuries, in search of exotic botanicals to add to the enlarging horticulture of the world. Among the honors received by the author are the award of the large Gold Medal of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Certificate of Merit of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Distinguished Service Award of the Horticultural Society of New York, a Citation Award of the American Horticultural Society, and the Tercentenary Medalliou of the State of New Jersey. IN 1967 he was invested with the Sarah Champman Francis Medal of the Garden Club of America for outstanding literary achievement. In Pittsburgh, in 1972, Alfred Graf was elected to horticulture's hall of fame, the highest distinction given by the society of American Florists, and in 1978he was awarded the doctor of Science degree.

His most recent publications are TROPICA, Color-ama of Exotic Plants with 7000 photos incl. Plants indoors. Also Hortica (8100 photos), Color Cyclopedia of Garden Flora in all Climates showing Hardiness Zones.

He is the President and founder of Roehrs Company, Book division.

Customer Reviews:

Hortica:color cyclopedia of garden flora in all climates and.......1999-10-09

This's a really amazing manual books for profesional and technical's horticulture!

Best Garden Color for Florida (Florida Gardening Series)

Average customer rating:

Florida gardening
Best Garden Color for Florida
Coloring a Florida garden.
Great book!
Fabulous for Floridians!

Best Garden Color for Florida (Florida Gardening Series)
Pamela Crawford
Manufacturer: Color Garden Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Easy Gardens for South Florida
Container Gardens for Florida
Stormscaping (Florida Gardening Series, Vol. 3)
Florida Gardener's Guide, 2nd Edition
Gardening and Landscaping in Central Florida

ASIN: 0971222010

Book Description

"Best Garden Color for Florida" is a must-have for Florida gardeners and professionals who love garden color! It is not only loaded with 575 spectacular photos, but also includes reams of easy-to-understand information about use and care of 150 terrific Florida plants. The plant information is complemented with chapters filled with ideas about color for butterflies, sun, shade, salt, and wind.

The book is a result of decades of plant research by the author to determine which plants and planting strategies give the most color for the least amount of care. The author personally grew most of the plants, giving her practical experience with all aspects of the plants' use and maintenance. It is a companion to the best-selling "Easy Gardens for South Florida", which will be adapted to cover the whole state in 2004. No information is repeated in either book. The two work together to give you the best garden color for Florida.

"Best Garden Color for Florida" covers all of Florida, with special emphasis on zones 9 through 11. It gives detailed information on annuals, perennials, shrubs, vines, and flowering trees.

The book is large-format, hard-cover, reference book with top-quality binding and paper. It is designed to be a useful, long-lasting book that goes with you to the garden center and into your backyard for many years to come. "Best Garden Color for Florida" belongs on the book shelf of every Florida gardener!

Customer Reviews:

Florida gardening.......2007-10-03

This book has wonderful graphics and comments that are very helpful to a new Florida gardner.

Best Garden Color for Florida.......2005-10-21

It is very difficult to find a good reference gardening book for South Florida specially for the Miami area. This book along with her other book "Easy Gardens for South Florida" are a must for anyone trying to garden in South Florida. Great information on all the plants listed in the book.

Coloring a Florida garden........2005-10-11

This very splashy book with big type, excellent large color photos on big pages is a useful guide if you are looking to brighten up your Florida garden. Crawford provides more information about how to care for each plant than is available in most books. The format of two facing pages for each plant with the information arranged in a common format and organization makes it very easy to use.
Her carefully dealing with suggesting companion plantings and showing their combined impact in a garden is extremely useful.
There are some inconsistencies and editing errors for example on pages 122-123 Butterfly Bush, there is extensive comment about it being a better plant for North Florida and very short-lived or unsuccessful in South Florida yet she recommends it for zones 10a to 11.
Obviously her priority in plant choice in this book is color and her criteria of can she get it to perform. From my perspective I question her advocating the use of spray liquid fertilizers on nectar plants without mentioning the negative impact on butterfly catepillars of these chemicals.
I got the book as a gift--and a lovely one it was--but I have not yet become convinced to spring for the companion volume "Easy Gardens for South Florida. There are many ways in which they would make more sense together than they do seperately but I have been waiting for the new edition to come out.
Some of the plants e.g Forsythia Sage which she raves about I and the major nursuries here in Sarasota and Venice have been unable to secure.

Great book!.......2005-06-07

I've lived in Florida for five years and always wanted a lot of color in my garden. Most of my efforts failed, except for annuals which I constantly have to replace. This book introduced me to a whole new group of easy perennials that bloom a lot and last for years! And each plant description has more care information than any other book I've ever seen! This book has changed my garden from drab to gorgeous!

Fabulous for Floridians!.......2005-06-07

This book is geared toward our Florida gardens. I am a South Florida landscaper and use this book constantly on sales calls. It is a super reference book chock full of pertinent info & color photos. It is easy to read and covers all aspects of plant needs from lighting, watering, soil & space requirements, fertilization & even pest cautions. The variety of plants listed by Ms. Crawford are readily available in most local nurseries and do well here in Florida. This is exactly the kind of book we Florida landscapers have been waiting for!

Average customer rating:

Best book going
a good starting point

The Gardener's Palette
Sydney Eddison
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Gardens to Go: Creating and Designing a Container Garden
Garden Color Book
Succession Planting for Year-Round Pleasure
Color in Garden Design
The Self-Taught Gardener: Lessons from a Country Garden

ASIN: 0809298937

Book Description

Gardeners learn the joy of creating color in the garden with ease

Any gardener can transform a dull perennial patch into a visual paradise with the expert tips in these beautifully illustrated pages. Written by a trained artist, The Gardener's Palette offers inspiration and instruction on "painting" with nature's colors. With a simple introduction to the color wheel and basic color theory, green thumbs learn to use harmonies and contrasts in the garden as an artist does on canvas. More than 300 glorious color photographsmany in close-up detailshowcase brilliant uses of color in gardens both real and impressionistic, including masterpieces by Monet and van Gogh.

This accessible guide offers chapters on container gardens, explaining how to experiment to create simple and complex color schemes by arranging and rearranging plant pots. Sections on background colorsneglected in other booksexplore the visual roles of greens, grays, and whites in the garden. There are even suggestions on using pots, fabrics, and other outdoor decorating materials to enhance nature's hues. This handsome volume makes a wonderful gift for anyone striving to achieve color confidence in the garden.

Customer Reviews:

Best book going.......2005-01-28

What a treat--a book about color in the garden that doesn't get bogged down on the differences between cadmium yellow dark and cadmium yellow medium. This is a highly readable book that both experienced and beginning gardeners will find useful and informative. With apologies to James Bond, no one has done it better.

a good starting point.......2003-08-24

If you don't know much about color theory and want some ideas on how to make color combinations work in the garden, this is a good starting point. I didn't learn a lot, but I found the photographs useful as they helped confirm that some of the ideas I have for my own garden should work out.

One topic I haven't seen covered in other books was the impact of house color on urban gardens. Most books seems to assume you have acres of space to work in with a woodland in the background. I have a typical city lot with a 10-15 foot wide border surrounding the house. Thus the background looking from the street or yard is almost always the house, and the background looking from the house is usually another house. The photographs in Eddison's book make it clear just how important the house color is to the overall impression of your borders and beds.

Book Description

Forty important garden flowers — morning-glory, tulip, peony, daffodil, zinnia, dahlia, iris, petunia, delphinium, fox-glove, snapdragon, many more. Caption for each drawing gives common and scientific names, usual colors, blooming season, whether annual, perennial, or biennial. Full color reproductions on covers.

Customer Reviews:

Very Pleasing.......2007-05-01

I bought this book not to color in, but as a source for clear line drawings of flowers to use in other design work. It works very well for that, with nice, unfussy illustrations of the flowers. Just as important as the blooms, the leaves and stems are also accurately rendered. There is very little addition (birds, butterflies, etc.) - that's fine with me, but some users might want a more detailed picture to color. The small colored guide pic's are apparently done in colored pencil, and provide a lot of detail for realistic coloration.

My one reservation is that some of the illustrations don't show the blooms full-on, but only in profile and 3/4 views. I always want to be able to see how the center of a flower is constructed. Overall, though, very nice.

A Gardeners Must Have.......2007-04-11

Whther your thumb is green or black you cannot go wrong with this. I just purchased these Dover COloring Books for my mother and she loves them. The detail is out of this world and the variety of colors you can use are only limited by your inagination. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Great for Elderly or Alzheimers Patients .......2007-03-16

I purchased this coloring book for my grandmother who has Alzheimer's. It helps her feel as if she is accomplishing something and also she is using her mind and hands to stay in the lines. It's an ideal coloring book for anyone who wishes to color like they use to.

Love to color and learn.......2006-11-04

My daughter has enjoyed learning the names of different flowers and then coloring them. She remembers them more because she has a chance to color them. We also use the internet to look up the different flowers and learn more about them and what colors they are. She enjoys this also and it helps her to create her masterpiece.

Garden Flowers Coloring Book.......2002-07-15

Thank you Amazon for carrying a wonderful selection of Stefen Bernath's books!! I use this particular book, by Stefen as a guide for watercolour sketching and painting. Garden Flowers contains a collection of more than thirty common flowers showing detailed shape and colour, including colour guilds that can be referred to for accuracy. An excellent reference book.

Choosing Plant Combinations: 501 beautiful ways to mix and match color and shape in the garden (Better Homes & Gardens)

Average customer rating:

Stunningly beautiful

Choosing Plant Combinations: 501 beautiful ways to mix and match color and shape in the garden (Better Homes & Gardens)
Better Homes and Gardens Books
Manufacturer: Better Homes and Gardens
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Landscape | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Perennial Combinations: Stunning Combinations That Make Your Garden Look Fantastic Right from the Start
The Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations
Before & After Garden Makeovers
Garden Color Book
Creating Beds and Borders: Creative Ideas from America's Best Gardeners (Fine Gardening Design Guides)

ASIN: 0696210142

Amazon.com

For those gardeners intimidated by the thought of planning color symphonies, creating color echoes, or applying any color theory to the garden as a whole, Choosing Plant Combinations will come as a welcome relief. Granted, color is the single most important effect gardeners work with--nothing is more important to the first impression a garden gives and the emotional response it evokes. However, color can be a challenge to work with, as it depends greatly on surrounding colors, quality of light, and individual perception.

The author, Cathy Wilkinson Barash, describes her book as "a non-designer's garden design book." Her idea, and it is a good one, is that pleasing gardens are built combination by combination. You don't need an overall scheme, but rather dozens of workable combos of two or three plants that, seen as a whole, make up a garden. All plants are clearly identified in 250 full-color photographs that illustrate ideas for effective combinations. Barash also explores the role colored and variegated foliages, architecturally shaped plants, and ornamental grasses play in creating pleasing, long-lasting combinations.

While the book's design (graphically lively to the point of excess) itself is questionable, the photographs are nevertheless lovely and may inspire gardeners to experiment, loosen up, and help them to worry less about using color. Nothing can set a mood or enliven a garden more than the bold use of color and form, and Barash's new book provides plenty of ideas to encourage gardeners to do just that, one plant combination at a time. --Valerie Easton

Book Description

This book does the homework for anyone who wants to create a beautiful garden but lacks the time to plan and design. It helps readers achieve maximum effect with minimum effort, with examples of combinations in the book for a bold or subdued look.

Gorgeous, full-color photographs of different plant combinations based on color and form.

Plant combinations shown give optimum effect using the aesthetics of color and form—including single color, bold color, subtle color, similar form, subtle form, and bold form.

Suggests alternative plants that give the same look and add to the regional diversity of the plant material included.

Combinations are adaptable to all regions of America.

Includes complete cultural information and mail-order sources for every plant shown.

Customer Reviews:

Stunningly beautiful.......2000-03-24

If you're looking for inspiration, this is a gorgeous book. Packed with beautiful photos and unusual plant combinations.

I've been too busy drooling at the photos to read, but this is one of the most beautiful-to-look-at gardening books I've seen this year.

Ideal if you are trying to design around a colour scheme, or just want inspiration to get started.

Armitage's Garden Annuals: A Color Encyclopedia
Average customer rating:

Another excellent book by Allan Armitage and Timber Press

Armitage's Garden Annuals: A Color Encyclopedia
Allan M. Armitage
Manufacturer: Timber Press, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Annuals | Flowers | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Reference | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Gardening | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Armitage's Garden Perennials: A Color Encyclopedia

Armitage's Manual of Annuals, Biennials and Half-Hardy Perennials

Armitage's Native Plants for North American Gardens

Herbaceous Perennial Plants: A Treatise on Their Identification, Culture, and Garden Attributes

Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs: An Illustrated Encyclopedia

ASIN: 0881926175

Book Description

Horticulturists, students, and dedicated home gardeners will be familiar with Armitage's authority on this topic from his more technical Manual of Annuals, Biennials, and Half-Hardy Perennials. That volume was singled out as a winner of the Choice Academic Book Award, the American Horticultural Society Book Award, and the Garden Writers of America Golden Globe Award. While this new offering is a perfect pictorial companion to the Manual, it also stands alone with its personal commentary and inspiring advice on the most interesting, important, or overlooked plants. Armitage selects proven specimens from nearly 200 genera of plants and evaluates their garden-worthiness and sheer beauty. With humor, authority, and a wealth of practical experience, Armitage offers invaluable insights into those plants that truly earn their keep — and a few that do not! He has illustrated the entries with more than 1300 stunning color photos, rounded out by more than two dozen helpful lists of plants suitable for particular situations or uses, including plants for cool-summer areas, plants for dry situations, edible plants, container plants, shade plants, vines, and flowers for cutting.

Customer Reviews:

Another excellent book by Allan Armitage and Timber Press.......2004-03-04

Mr. Armitage is following the format utilized by his earlier book "Armitage's Garden Perennials" and Michael Dirr's "Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs", providing frank information of common and obscure annuals. Comments such as "Bananas...If you are reading this and are not thinking, 'this guy is nuts!', then you are an open-minded gardener, and we can drink beer together." are what makes this a good book. But the pictures are outstanding. If this book had no words other than the description below the picture, it would be an outstanding book. I now have all the reference I need along with "Armitage's Manual of Annuals, Biennials, and Half-Hardy Perennials". I just need a bigger bookshelf....

P. Allen Smith's Colors for the Garden: Creating Compelling Color Themes

Average customer rating:

helpful, inspiring guide
A rehash of his previous books - don't bother with this one

P. Allen Smith's Colors for the Garden: Creating Compelling Color Themes
P. Allen Smith
Manufacturer: Clarkson Potter
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Reference | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

P. Allen Smith's Garden Home: Creating a Garden for Everyday Living
P. Allen Smith's Container Gardens: 60 Container Recipes to Accent Your Garden
P. Allen Smith's Garden Home Journal (Potter Style)
The Welcoming Garden
The English Roses: Classic Favorites and New Selections

ASIN: 1400053420
Release Date: 2006-02-21

Book Description

In this landmark guide to transforming your garden settings into living works of art, bestselling author and celebrity home garden designer P. Allen Smith draws on his talents as both master gardener and artist to offer simple ways to create gardens that burst with color. In P. Allen Smith’s Colors for the Garden, Allen reveals the basic techniques he uses to fashion the kind of jaw-dropping creations that have made him one of the country’s most sought-after garden designers.

Exploring the concept of creating art with flowers and foliage, Allen makes it easy to paint your “garden canvas” with a perfect palette of plants in every shade and hue to achieve a variety of magnificent effects. Here, he simplifies the process of selecting and creating compelling blends of colors to complement home and personal style, be it bright and energizing or more subdued and soothing.

In the first section of the book, Allen offers five color confidence-building ways to select a garden palette that reflects your taste and style; he begins by walking you through the process of connecting colors both inside and out, so that the interior and exterior of your home and the permanent features in your garden become the canvas upon which you begin to apply your color choices. Allen’s approach establishes a color bond between your home and garden that blends them into a cohesive unit while enhancing the beauty of both.

In the next section, Allen supplies easy yet evocative lessons on how to “paint” your choice of colors onto your landscape, from creating a garden canvas to applying bold “brush strokes” of color, shading, and texture to the garden setting. Finally, marrying the practical to the creative, Allen provides a complete, user-friendly plant directory—a color-coded resource guide that helps you choose the right plants based on their color theme, growing zone, and light requirements.

Both inspirational and eminently practical, P. Allen Smith’s Colors for the Garden is an indispensable reference for gardeners of all skill levels, and a welcome addition to the bestselling P. Allen Smith Garden Home series.

“My sincere hope is that the ideas and images found on these pages will inspire and encourage you to try your hand at painting a landscape full of your favorite colors. Once you’ve had the experience, I’m sure you will find there’s nothing like the thirill of living in your own work of art.” — From the Introduction

Customer Reviews:

helpful, inspiring guide.......2006-04-10

The new book from P. Allen Smith is a lovely book full of clear pictures and advice that is useful and realistic while at the same time not being too restrictive. Many pages in the back of the book with plant suggestions and ideas and P. Allen's own advice using cool, hot and neutral colors as well as some of his own favorite choices. I have found this book very useful.

A rehash of his previous books - don't bother with this one.......2006-03-28

I expected more from this book given I own P. Allen Smith's previously published books P.Allen Smith's Garden Home and Container Gardens. But this book gave no additional information that wasn't already written in his other books. In addition, some of the photos were also repeated from his previously published books. Lack of information on how to mix and match colors in plantings made this book worthless. Basically what this book is, is just an encylopedia of plants categorized by color. I expected more!

Average customer rating:

Great purchase
Easy Gardening
Continuous Bloom
A good reference book for New England gardeners...
Simplicity itself!

Continuous Bloom
Pam Duthie
Manufacturer: Ball Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Continuous Color: A Month-by-Month Guide to Shrubs and Small Trees for the Continuous Bloom Garden
Perennial Combinations: Stunning Combinations That Make Your Garden Look Fantastic Right from the Start
Perennial All-Stars: The 150 Best Perennials for Great-Looking, Trouble-Free Gardens
Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting & Pruning Techniques
The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques

ASIN: 1883052238

Book Description

A guide to keeping a perennial garden in bloom from April through October, this book provides all the information a gardener needs to grow beautiful flowers. Detailed information includes descriptions of flowers, bloom length, light and soil requirements, care, propagation, and potential problems.

Customer Reviews:

Great purchase.......2007-07-24

I love the paperback version of this book because it is spiralbound. It has laminated pages, great for the garden, keeps it clean. The book is organized by flowering month that helps find plants you can't identify or to locate plants for a certain month that you need more color in your garden. I live in the Chicago area and it seems to cover a lot of plants for my planting zone. Each plant has the information I need to choose for certain areas of planting. It's a great book!

Easy Gardening.......2006-05-17

This book has taken the puzzle and work out of perennial gardening. THanks to Pam, I now understand the way to keep my garden in color all season!

Continuous Bloom.......2005-10-24

I have many books and enjoy them all. But this book had some ideas and information I had not read about in the past. A very fine purchase.

A good reference book for New England gardeners..........2005-06-21

Continuous Bloom is one of those books I refer to over and over again. Pam Duthie shows that it is relatively easy to keep perennial beds and borders looking good and in bloom from March through October in eastern North America. Two hundred and seventy-two of the best perennials, each with a full-color photo, are arranged in order of bloom time. For each plant, there is necessary information for home gardeners such as: plant hardiness zone, height/width, descriptions of flower and foliage, bloom time, light and soil requirements, care, propagation, and potential problems. A good investment for beginning as well as experienced gardeners.

Simplicity itself!.......2003-04-25

This book is a novice gardener's dream come true!
The flowering plants & colorful bushes are arranged by month of blooming time, each page has a picture of the plant & a detailed description of it: Type, flower size, foliage color, bloom length, light preference, care problems, tips, etc..
There are planting & seasonal garden care tips at the end of the book.
As a novice gardener I'm glad that I found this book to help me create a continuously blooming garden.

Average customer rating:

A book of inspiration for the perennial gardener

Color in Your Garden
Penelope Hobhouse
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Landscape | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Landscape | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Garden Style
Penelope Hobhouse on Gardening
Penelope Hobhouse's Garden Designs
Flower Gardens
The Gardener's Palette

ASIN: 0316367486

Customer Reviews:

A book of inspiration for the perennial gardener.......1997-05-11

I have pored over the pages of this book and learned volumes from it. Hobhouse's discussion of color theory and its relationship to the garden is a revelation, and her suggestions and illustrations of garden companions are inspirational. When you get serious about designing your borders, this is essential reading.

Average customer rating:

The Color Pallete for your Garden
very pretty
Not that useful
The perfect format
Most Helpful Garden Planning Tool

Garden Color Book
Paul Williams
Manufacturer: Chronicle Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Spiral-bound

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Gardener's Palette
Color in Garden Design
Creating Beds and Borders: Creative Ideas from America's Best Gardeners (Fine Gardening Design Guides)
The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques
P. Allen Smith's Colors for the Garden: Creating Compelling Color Themes

ASIN: 0811828344

Amazon.com

The colors alone are enough to guarantee this book being a favorite for any flower enthusiast with a green thumb. The Garden Color Book is a feast for both the eyes and the imagination, and it's unique flip-book style (lifted from those mix-and-match children's picture books) make the possible combinations seem endless. While you'll be eager to skip ahead and get right into playing with the page strips, there's some important information in the beginning, including the key code for the various needs of each plant, zone hardiness, light and water requirements, and special concerns. So once you've paid your dues, let the fun begin! Each page of plants is cut into three horizontal strips, one level each for tall, medium, and short plants, and then separated into color groupings--the vivid indigos, bright oranges, and cool silver foliage are photographed beautifully, shown off to perfection with clear close ups. The back of each preceding strip contains squares of information about each plant, so as you're admiring, you merely have to glance to the left to learn whether it's appropriate for your space and conditions. With a clear plastic cover and sturdy spiral binding, this is a book to take outside with you, or pass around the garden club for group inspiration. --Jill Lightner

Book Description

Bargain Books are non-returnable.

Flippable, flexible, and comprehensive, this garden's version of The Color Book (over 100,000 copies sold!) is a must-have for gardeners with an eye for the big picture. Presented in the same interactive format as its popular predecessor, The Garden Color Book includes over 600 photographs of individual plants— displayed horizontally in swatches by color—that let you flip back and forth, mixing and matching until you find the perfect color scheme. By showing what color blossoms a bulb or shrub will have when in bloom, this indispensable gardening reference allows you to imagine how a summer plot might look planted with a sea of flame red penstemon accented by some sky blue salvias or a spring border of lime green euphorbia. With concise plant profiles covering propagation and bloom, as well as season and zone information, and more than 340,000 combinations, gardener's will be sure to find their ideal garden color palette—before putting trowel to earth.

Customer Reviews:

The Color Pallete for your Garden.......2007-08-07

Take this book out, sit on the floor with all those gardening catalougs if you are like me about 400 or so and plan out your whole spring planting. It's a great way to get over winter.

very pretty.......2006-11-06

This is a very pretty book, but it has one major flaw. The plants are listed by scientific name and rarely by common name. This can be a problem if, for example, you just want to see, for example, a pansy, and you don't know the scientific name and don't feel like looking it up.

Not that useful.......2000-07-23

I had hoped to use this book to look up specific perennials and compare their colors, but most of the flowers I had in mind were not included in the book. There are 639 plants covered, not just perennials, but annuals, bulbs, vines, and shrubs as well. So considering that there are thousands of varieties of flowers, the chances of finding a particular flower are slim. This book is better used without a specific plant in mind, but to browse through to get ideas of plants of a particular color.

Also, there seems to be a warm climate bias. Many of the plants (not just annuals) are for zones 8 and up. I think northern gardeners would find this a frustrating book to use.

The perfect format.......2000-06-07

Wow...what a lot of fun. The three strips of mix-and-match flip pages are the perfect interactive format for letting your own eye experiment with different color combinations. The consistent quality of the photographs and color printing make it easy to compare how even subtle shifts in color have a powerful design impact. The author's own remarkable plant combinations on each strip are fascinating in themselves. Not just pretty pictures either- the back of each strip identifies the plant, descibes its culture and growing habits and also offers some very good suggestions for plant combinations. One of my all-time favorite garden design books.

Most Helpful Garden Planning Tool.......2000-05-03

This book solves the problem for so many of us weekend gardeners who are looking for colorful combinations for our beds that work together, but don't have the time to sit and match pictures of plants to get the color scheme correct. Unlike most gardening books that provide you with garden designs too cluttered with foliage to get the impact of the flowers' colors, this book gives you combinations that work in one reference source. It's easy to use, providing a great variety of plants and information for any gardener, but the most useful point is the garden color palette it provides. This book is well worth the purchase just in the time it saves me that I used to spend planting and then transplanting plants to different locations because they didn't work with the surrounding bed. There is nothing more jarring to the eye than looking at a garden bed and seeing that one color that just doesn't work with the others. This is a perfect book for any gardener, from beginner to expert.

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