Bulb [Hardcover]

Anna Pavord (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2009

A personal selection and authoritative guide to the most beautiful bulbs on the earth.


The publication of Anna Pavord's guide to her favorite bulbs, corms, and tubers is an event to be celebrated. Here, the world famous author of The Tulip, selects 540 favorite bulbs, more bulbs than and gardener could grow in a lifetime.

Easy-to-grow, generally inexpensive and highly accessible, bulbs are readily available from many outlets. From acis, anemones and arums to zantedeschia, zephyranthes, and zigadenus, this alphabetical collection provides inspiration, insight, anecdote, and helpful advice. Special photography reveals the glory of each bulb, explaining flowering size, height, planting depth and requires soil and climatic conditions.

This gorgeous book, a complete deluxe package, will appeal to gardeners as the world's most authoritative and affordable reference work on bulbs.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Author Pavord (The Tulip, 1999) has produced a charming, handsome book, the product of a lifetime of keeping notes on her passion, filled with practical advice on the purchase and care of bulbs. The approximately 600 entries include detailed descriptions of the blooms, some comparisons with related cultivars, plant size, hardiness, native areas, and bloom season. Selected species with interesting histories (e.g., hyacinths, tulips, lilies, narcissus) are treated to longer entries. The entries are accompanied by photographs of individual blossoms. These are interspersed with lush two-page-spread images of gardens, masses of blooms, and single spectacular blooms. Pavord’s writing style is delightfully conversational while providing important technical information for the gardener. In addition to an introduction about the history, origins, and nature of bulbs, there are a section on how to grow bulbs, a bibliography of outstanding specialist books, and an index. There is one large flaw. The USDA hardiness-zones chart for the 48 contiguous United States, southern Canada, and northern Mexico on the front endpapers has temperatures ranging up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit and 246 degrees Celsius. Somehow 200 degrees was added to the correct temperatures for most of the zones. Purchasers can easily correct the chart, however. This would be an excellent addition to all libraries having horticulture or gardening collections. --Linda Loos Scarth

About the Author

Anna Pavord writes for several magazines in the UK and she has authored eight books, including the internationally acclaimed bestseller, The Tulip.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Mitchell Beazley (November 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845335325
• ISBN-13: 978-1845335328
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 7.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #787,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Flowers > Bulbs

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential May 20, 2010

By rollerskate

I bought this book thinking it would be an encyclopaedia with pictures of a good number of presently available bulbs featured - a bit like the wonderful books by Roger Phillips. And was initially disappointed. The book is stuffed full of photos, but not as many as I had anticipated.

However where this book comes into its own is with the extent of its very detailed information. I sat down with this book for half an hour with a cup of coffee and learned more in those thirty minutes about bulbs than in all my years gardening, and that was just with skimming through. Anyone who grows bulbs will learn an enormous amount from Anna Pavord's deep and detailed subject knowledge. It covers everything from history to cultivation, propagation, storage, and most importantly positioning - which I had never realised was so important. This book will pay for itself quite quickly with the money it saves me when buying and growing bulbs.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Bulbastic!!!!!! December 16, 2009

By William Churchill

Amazon Verified Purchase

I had recently seen the author on Martha Stewart and fell in love with her. Although the author is writing from England, the book is insightful and helpful. The photographs are beautiful and certainly make it easy to identify the bulbs in American catalogs that are usually too small to be seen. The author adds anecdotes that makes reading the text fun.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Book October 30, 2010

By Garden Bird

Amazon Verified Purchase

A beautiful book that was highly recommended by a friend. It inspired me to plant more bulbs.