Bruce and Sharon Asakawa's California Gardener's Guide [Paperback]

Bruce Asakawa (Author), Sharon Asakawa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 2001

Gardening is now the favorite leisure pastime in America. Homeowners are realizing the health benefits derived from gardening and the increase in their home's property value.

Book retailers are well aware that the trend in gardening books is to regional titles that provide credible information on the plants that perform well in specific regions.

California's Gardener's Guide is written by the highly popular gardening experts Bruce and Sharon Asakawa.

Contains easy to use advice on the top landscape plant choices (more than 160 entries) for California. Recommends specific varieties and provides advice on how to plant, how to grow and how to care for California's best plants.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Gardening is now the favorite leisure pastime in America. Homeowners are realizing the health benefits derived from gardening and the increase in their home's property value. This book contains easy-to-use advice on the top landscape plant choices.   It also recommends specific varieties, and provides advice on how to plant, how to grow and how to care for the best plants.  

From the Publisher

Bruce Asakawa, “The Voice of California Gardening” for 25 years, reaches 1.2 million listeners twice a week across 18 California markets! Now, he has written a gardening book exclusively for ALL California gardeners, featuring 165 premium plants for the Golden State. Each plant entry has a large corresponding color photo. Its 423 pages cover annuals, perennials, berries, trees, houseplants, groundcovers, roses and more. Bruce and Sharon also offer valuable plant-by-plant advice on planting, fertilizing, care and pest control and share recommended cultivars for personalizing your California landscape. Good Growing. It starts here!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson; 1st edition (September 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930604475
• ISBN-13: 978-1930604476
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,330,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not for all, June 6, 2002

By 

david streeter - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bruce and Sharon Asakawa's California Gardener's Guide (Paperback)

A well written and illustrated guide to the 165 or so plants that grow well in the author's portion of California. The book must be faulted for not including plants that grow well and provide color in the arid and desert regions of the state. Certainly water wise gardening should be included. No mention is made of the use of California native plants in the garden. A beginning gardener will be better served by Sunset's WESTERN GARDEN BOOK. Those who will admit to living in an arid region (this includes Los Angeles) will find Eric Johnson's JOHNSON'S GUIDE TO GARDENING: PLANTS FOR THE ARID WEST of great value for its coverage of native plants. Desert gardeners will need the Coachella Valley Water District's LUSH & EFFICIENT: GARDENING IN THE COACHELLA VALLEY as their guide to effective desert gardening.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice companion book, October 20, 2002

By 

Cathy Austin "mzcat" (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bruce and Sharon Asakawa's California Gardener's Guide (Paperback)

This book is ok because it has nice pictures and stories. I do like it because it has a "when to plant" reference as well as sun exposure, bloom time and color and other useful information. I'm a Northern California gardner and found this book to be somewhat specific to Southern California in plant selection, although they do show, for each plant, a map of Caifornia where each plant would grow. I found Northern California Gardening: A Month-By-Month Guide by Katherine Grace Endicott a great book and of course Sunset's Western Garden book.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice supplement (though not essential), June 3, 2004

By 

Jasmol (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bruce and Sharon Asakawa's California Gardener's Guide (Paperback)

I agree with the other reviewers that Sunset's Western Garden Guide is the essential book. My only complaint with that book is while it is quite extensive, the small illustrated drawings are not always ideal for identifying unknown plants and the depth is occasionally lacking. I bought this book (cheap at a booksale) because it focused on a smaller number of plants (admittedly oriented toward Southern California), had nice big photographs of each plant and went into a little bit more depth (fertilizer ratios to use, specific planting directions, soil ph numbers, etc.)