gardening and horticulture

In this book 20 garden designers share ideas and techniques for creating a beautiful garden in a unique style. The book is divided into three parts - Traditional Gardens, Naturalistic Gardens and Specialty gardens. Each part is composed of short, beautifully-illustrated articles written in a very personal style by a gardener, landscape designer or horticulturist.

It is the personal nature of each article that contributes most to the appeal of this book. Take the opening of Nani Waddoups article titled "Tropical Garden, Temperate Zone". She writes "The newer parts of our garden look a little out of place..." How can you resist an opening like that? Her article describing her garden - listed in the Smithsonian Registry of Gardens - shows how her Hawaiian background prompted her and helped her to develop a lush pseudo-tropical garden in the Pacific Northwest.

My favourite section is that on Naturalistic Gardens. Five writers form points as far apart as Connecticut and Texas share with the reader ways in which they used the local climate, geology, soil and plants to create a garden that has given each of them great pleasure and satisfaction.

Top marks to the Taunton Press for introducing these garden writers first to Fine Gardening magazine and now in book form for those of us who like to sit down and read the whole collection. The editors have put together a book that offers gardeners a diversity of fresh ideas in a most attractive format.