Customer Reviews

American Horticultural Society Great Plant Guide

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you dream of finding beautiful flowers, the new updated and revised American Horticultural Society Great Plant Guide is impressive. With over 3000 recommended plants and guides for plants for containers, this book was rather handy when planting a new container garden.

On page 674 and 675 you can find a Plant Heat-Zone Map which gives 12 heat zones. Most plants are featured with a picture and short description. Then, you can find symbols for the preferred soil type, sun/shade preferences and hardiness zone ranges. The plants without pictures are listed in The Planting Guide and feature trees, shrubs, climbers, perennials and bulbs suitable for specific site or garden situations.

Features:

Advice on how to buy plants through the mail
How to choose healthy bulbs
Understanding Plant Names
Plants to attract Birds
Plants to attract Butterflies
Plants for Cold or Warm Walls
Flower for drying or cutting
Architectural plants
Cottage-garden-style plants
Trees for Small gardens
Flowering hedges

You can look up a flower in the index. Like, say "Petunia." This gives you a few names and then you can search for advice on how/where to plant your favorites.

Since I just moved further away from my dear mother, we have both planted Petunias. So now when we look out of our window to our planters, we will think of each other. It was my mother's idea and she loves gardening. My grandmother used to grow roses and it seems everyone in my family has a green thumb. Our family loves going to gardens and learning flower names. This book is perfect for travel and is very useful when shopping for plants that have not yet bloomed. You can quickly look up names of plants alphabetically.

For more detailed information on Container Gardening, look up the book by the same name by Paul Williams. His book taught me the best way to create an inspiring masterpiece.

Now onto dreaming about planting a new lavender garden in the near future. I am also intrigued by some of the vines in this book. The blue trumpet vine looks interesting and in the zone I'm living in, I could quite possibly grow a passionflower vine. Seattle and Issaquah were a bit too cold and rainy. There are some stunning flower selections interspersed with familiar flower faces.

If it was my choice, I'd spend all my time writing, cooking and planting flowers while listening to inspiring music. What a life! This book is sure to inspire some of your own gardening dreams.

~The Rebecca Review

It is a beautiful little book but I need a more complete reference...the first few names I looked up weren't included, and I also want more background on the genus name as well as on the common name. Guess I'll have to go for the big bucks! :)

I think this is a very nice book; it is very informative. However, I was surprised when I received it that it was pocket sized and the typeface was very small. It can be difficult to read for some people.

I found this condensed book pretty complete and I like the fact that it includes shrubs, perennials, and planting suggestions at the end of the book.

I realize that some plants have different names, but I may have found things easier if the index was more complete in using common names.

Nice book for packing in a suitcase for air travel.

I carried this book through the nursery while inspecting some spring plants to purchase, and every flower I looked at was in the book. I couldn't beleive it! I told all my friends about it!

The AHSGPG is a wonderful little book. It has practically every living plant known to man. Not only does it give descriptions on plants/trees/shrubs, but this book also gives you a climate planting guide, as well as suggestions on the different kinds of plants to plant in different areas of the U.S. Even small container gardens, shade gardens, full sun gardens along with different soil limitations. It's small size is what I love...small enough to tuck in a purse when going plant shopping!

Love this book. The pocket size and all the pictures make it quite handy for quick reference. Excellent pictures.

The AHS Great Plant Guide is a thick "pocket sized" plant guide with great photographs. Contains a lot of information about the plants included in this book. But at the same time, doesn't seem to have that much substance. It's a nice little plant guide to have, although you probably won't find that particular plant that you may be trying to do some research on. May make a nice gift for a new gardener.

This is a must for all who garden. The pictures are good; there is a picture for every plant listed. The thing that makes this guide particularly good is that it includes the new heat zone recommendations, as well as the climate zones. I would not be without this very valuable reference book.

The revised, updated new edition of the American Horticultural Society's Great Plant Guide is truly an outstanding achievement. A fat but genuinely pocket-sized guide contains 3,000 recommended plants, color photos, and an A-Z format for quick consultation. Add at-a-glance charts of required conditions and you have a reference which is useful and colorful.