Customer Reviews

Best Garden Plants For Iowa

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

 

 

Usually most books start with "you can propagate with root tip cuttings". Well, if I knew what that was & how to do it it wouldn't need your book. Bless Chuck (who grew up in Iowa) for laying it all out for me - tallest to smallest, length of flowering, what type of dogwood & magnolia will grow here (I'm from WV & miss my dogwoods & magnolias). Sure we've got an Earl May store down the street, but their assumption that my basic knowledge matches theirs
makes me feel stupid. I need something 6 ft tall & green as a N windbreak & to cover up my neighbors ugly chain fence - Chuck had the answer right away, without offering me so many choices in names that I've never heard of that it makes me want to hit them with all the 'medicalese' I'm used to. They're kind folk, but Chuck's book tells me what I need and want to know. I stuck a 4 in pussy willow that had been under freezing conditions without water all winter and now I've got this huge tree - wish I'd known that earlier. This is an absolutely, positively, without a doubt wonderful book. And I thought I was stuck with those ugly solid orange day lilies for ever. I hate 'em. Pictures showed varieties that were gorgeous. Wish I'd also known that lily of the valley would take over my whole yard. This book is solid gold and a must have for an experienced IA gardener or one like me who thought a peony was a weed and yanked it out.

really, it is a 3.5 star book. this book is a very cursory glance of garden plants in iowa. it is pretty shallow, so don't expect anything more than a brief description. very pretty pictures, though. needs to include more care information for the plants (sunlight requirements on all plants, soil, how to maintain). also doesn't differentiate native species from non-natives. it is a good, basic book but not terribly thorough.