The Cutting Garden [Hardcover]

Sarah Raven (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 13, 1997

...the book's strongest suit is the abundance of detailed instruction on creating a variety of arrangements, using casual materials like kitchen pitchers, small glass bottles, or bowls to display freshly picked and naturally grouped compositions of flowers, foliage, fruit, twigs, and berries.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this extremely beautiful and practical book, Raven, a British "flower arranger to the rich and famous," presents gorgeous color photos of her own cutting garden in Sussex. Personal, clear, well organized, and direct in her writing style, she begins with tips for laying out a cutting garden to provide flowers throughout the year and goes on to discuss cultivation, cutting, conditioning, and basic arranging principles. She then suggests truly stunning flower arrangements for each season, indicating instructions, equipment, plants, and methods for each. The final section is a catalog of the author's favorite cutting flowers and foliage arranged by season and color, including illustrations to scale and conditioning and cultivation requirements. This book, which provides a wealth of information and inspiration, is unlike any other the reviewer has seen. While the flower selections are suitable to northern zones, the principles can be adapted by gardeners in all climates. Highly recommended.?Carol Cubberley, Univ. of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

... a joyous book, with wonderfully detailed photographs by Pia Tryde -- 01/10/2006 Woman & Home ... a stunningly beautiful book for flower arrangers, where glorious photographs are backed up by sound, practical advice Practical Gardening --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: Readers Digest (January 13, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089577884X
• ISBN-13: 978-0895778840
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 10 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,091,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is Not your Mother's Cutting Garden!, July 15, 1997

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Cutting Garden (Hardcover)

I first found this book at my public library. I was skeptical at first because growing, rather than cutting flowers is more my thing. But it looked pretty, so I took it home. Wow! What a surprise. I like it so much that I logged on and ordered it from Amazon immediately.

While many of the flower arrangements were not to my taste, the section on "Flowers and Foliage Through the Seasons" is worth the price of the book. Lavishly photographed and thoroughly documented with varieties and cultivation notes, this section contains a number of more unusual complementary foliage plants that a relative beginning gardener like myself might not think to plant. From Euphorbias and Eryngium to "lime green" Nicotiana and the unusual acid green zinnia "Envy" there are dozens of fantastic plants to complement some of the more traditional border flowers.

Sections covered in the book are:

Planning and stocking the Garden
-includes planting schemes and cultivation tips

Flower Arranging
-my least favorite part of the book, but the notes on conditioning different cut flowers are great.

Flowers and Foliage through the Seasons.
-Excellent reference section. The beautiful photos are very detailed(and to scale, you can actually figure out how big one plant is in relation to another!) and grouped by season and color scheme.

Recommended for the beginning/intermediate flower gardener!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my Favorites!!!, June 11, 2007

By 

E. Benzakein "floret" (Mount Vernon,WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cutting Garden: Growing and Arranging Garden Flowers (Hardcover)

I found this lovely book at the local library a few years back. One page in and I new I had discovered treasure! This book is wonderful. It is so full of helpful information and useful tips which are rarely if ever available on cut flower varieties outside the traditional florist scope. I reference this book almost daily in my floral business. I highly recommend it!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I added it to my collection, March 4, 2002

By 

Regina "hottik" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cutting Garden (Hardcover)

I too checked this one out from the library and promptly purchased it as a reference for my own book collection. I was most inspired by the variety of plants the author highlighted for arranging...I hadn't thought about a lot of the things I already have growing in my own garden in that light before. I also liked her descriptions of the composition of the arrangements.