Customer Reviews

A Cutting Garden for Florida, Third Edition

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

 

 

Living in Florida I can vouch for the difficulties of growing just about anything in the sandy, nutrient poor, water deficient soil. Starting from that less than perfect base Betty Barr Mackey and Monica Moran Brandies walk the reader through the various things they need to know in order to grow a beautiful cutting garden. From finding the right place, to properly preparing the soil, to picking the appropriate flowers for soil, sun, and moisture conditions "A Cutting Garden for Florida" covers everything you need to know to have a successful garden. It even covers germination times, when a particular flower blooms, how long it blooms, and other information so you can make sure that when one flower goes out of season another is coming in. This is a highly recommended book for anyone dealing with the daunting task of getting flowers to grow in Florida.

Simply fabulous is the word for this book and not only for those gardeners who live in Florida! A Cutting Garden For Florida was written to help those who live there learn to extend the season and be able to grow plants for bouquets in both the warm and cool seasons however a gardener in the northern states could just as easily adapt the information to their specific climate.

This is one of the few gardening books that has kept me intrigued enough to not want to put it down until I was finished with it. Also it does contain a lot of basic information about seed starting, choosing a site and other information a more advanced gardener would already know I would still highly recommend this book as there is information that even they may not know.

The book goes on to give specific details about various plants that make excellent cut flowers, as well as tips for drying the bouquets and basic flower design techniques.

This one is definitely up there on my list of books you simply must have regardless of where you live but if you live in Florida you simply cannot do without this one!

Now available in a newly revised, expanded and updated third edition, A Cutting Garden For Florida continues to be a marvelously detailed, instructive, easy to understand guide to growing top-class flowers for bouquets and landscape improvement. Nursing seedlings, propagating plants from cuttings, as well as forming a cutting garden with annuals, biennials, perennials, or trees and shrubs are all covered, with easy-to-follow instructions delivered in clear, direct prose. Black and white sketches of various plants illustrate the techniques and species-specific entries. A Cutting Garden For Florida is a superb horticultural and cultivational guide and a "must" not just for Florida's gardening enthusiasts, but for anyone interested in creating a beautiful cutting garden of their own!

A practical, precise, and unique book, essential for anyone trying to grow a floriferous garden in Central Florida's challenging climate... If you're not interested in cut flowers per se, don't be put off -- the book is an excellent reference for growing any flowers in Central Florida.

Though the title says it's for Florida, in fact the authors are pretty upfront with their geographical focus: North Florida can use any gardening book published for the Deep South, so this book concentrates on gardening in Central and, to a lesser degree, South Florida.

A Cutting Garden is not the work of horticultural experts in the narrow sense, since neither of the authors is a professional landscaper or botanist. That's by no means a criticism: Sometimes you need the wise words of experienced lovers of green things. Add that to a pretty good ear for good gardening prose and enough exactitude to please without overwhelming, and Brandies and Mackey's book fills a real niche.

The level of specificity is this book's best attribute: To a degree I've never before encountered in a gardening book for Florida, "Cutting Garden" offers exact advice on when, where and what to plant in your garden to produce plenty of blooms. They begin the book with an excellent and efficient discussion of Florida's climactic and soil conditions before offering the the whys and hows of establishing a cutting garden, intelligently treating the installation of garden beds, mulching, frost insurance, pest control. Readers will find the best seasonal guide to planting I've found for Florida (with the exception of MacCubbin's Month-by-month Gardening In Florida) and a fine section on starting plants from seeds and cutting.

Florida's humidity, heat and sun make growing Foxglove, Snapdragons, Delphinum, Stock, and many other traditional cutting flowers difficult. Mackey and Brandies advise planting many of these perennials as biennials, taking advantage of Central Florida's nearly frost-free climate to plant seedlings in November for blooms in February through June. Of course, since most of these plants aren't available in the nurseries around here, you'll have to start them as seeds. The book offers advice on specific cultivars and species, and even seed distributors.

A long chapter, the best of its kind for Florida, is devoted to bulbs that work in Central Florida's sandy, hot and nematode-prone soils. Many of these are hard-to-find or "old-fashioned" bulbs that have fallen out of favor: Sparaxis, Freesia, Camassia, Babiana, Watsonia and Tritonia. (They can be purchased through easytogrowbulbs.com, which specializes in hot-climate bulbs.) Some bulbs are practically care-free: Spraxis and Watsonia, for instance, are essentially Gladiolus, bulbs that perform well here 10 months of the year. Some of the bulbs they recommend Ranunculus and (maybe) Oxalis will have to be dug out and stored. Frankly, many of these bulbs cost less than a dollar apiece when bought in quantity -- I plan to treat them like annuals and, if they come back next year, so much the better.

Especially strong is their concentration on atypical bulbs, perennials and annuals -- plants like Candytuft, Bells of Ireland, Sweet William Catchfly, Toadflax, Laurentia, Pot Marigolds, Shoo-fly Plants, and Love in a Mist. I haven't had a chance to try any of these, but I've bought the seeds at Thompson & Morgan and Parks Seeds and already started many of them.

Since this is a book devoted to cutting gardens, every flower entry has directions on how to cut and best preserve the flowers for long vase life. The last part of the book is devoted to a discussion of flower arranging -- not my thing, personally, but the advice is good.

Some minor gripes, and then I'll have to bring this review to a close: There's practically no discussion of the garden rose -- the best flower, for cutting or otherwise, here in Central Florida. The authors admit that roses should find their way into every garden, but offer little in the way of substantive advice on choice and cultivation. For that, you'll have to turn to Barbara Oehlbeck's quirky but excellent For the Love of Roses in Florida and Elsewhere. Mackey and Brandies give short shrift to orchids, too, though they are fairly easy to grow here in Florida and make excellent cut flowers.

Finally, I haven't seen the latest edition of the book, but the second edition lacks photographs, illustrations amounting to a few sketches that aren't terribly useful. For pictures to go with the excellent text descriptions, you'll have to look on the web (Dave's Garden is a great place to start) or in other books (Florida Gardener's Guide by Georgia Tasker and Tom MacCubbin has the best, most useful illustrations for Florida flora that I've found).

This is a great book. I've found it very helpful in planning my cuttting garden. The only point that surprised me a bit was the lack of photos. There are hand drawings which are nice, but really don't convey what the flowers look like. I'd love to see a new addition with a directory of photos that corresponds to the text. Regardless, I do recommend the book.

Sandy soil and lots of insects are two barriers that Florida residents face. High humidity that causes numerous fungal problems is another. But all is not lost because the secret to growing flowers in Florida is choosing the right time of the year to plant and this book is one to add to your keeper shelf.

Whereas many flower enthusiasts like to browse through catalogs during winter I choose the hot summers when it can be unbearable to go outside unless you are in a pool. I pull my favorite books for ideas and, because I am very visual, I love books with colorful concise pictures. This book is lacking; hence, four stars. Also, when I read about southern gardening I would like the author(s) to recommend cultivars and very few are listed here. Even though it can be time consuming Latin names are given so you can cross-reference with the internet.

On the upside A CUTTING GARDEN FOR FLORIDA reminds flower gardeners things we tend to forget. The proper way of cutting and condition matters. Living arrangements of container plants are an alternative, not everything need to be direct seeded in the ground. Beneficial insects are used for a healthier environment and more. Can I recommend this book to you? Yes, no matter how long you have lived here you will find something to learn.

"Well that just dills my pickle." - Southern saying

Very good resource for learning about fall/winter gardening in Florida. There is a lot of information in it on how to cut & preserve the different flowers for arrangements. And it lists and describes which flowering plants will survive in Florida (so many won't), using the authors' firsthand experience. This book was very helpful in that way. Too bad I found out my soil is too alkaline. Hopefully, it can be improved.