Customer Reviews

Cutting Gardens: The Complete Guide to Growing Flowers and Creating Spectacular Arrangements for Every Season and Every Region

5 star:		(4)
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2 star:		(1)
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This book's wealth of practical infomation is presented in a well thought out, easy to understand fashion. Chapters one through four are devoted to the planning of and caring for a cutting garden, as well as creating attractive floral arrangements. Without a doubt, though, my favorite section of the book is the 53 page Encyclopedia of Plants which lists 212 perennials, annuals, herbs, tubers, corms, bulbs, vines, shrubs, and, yes, even an occasional small tree which make suitable cut flowers. Each entry in the encyclopedia contains a photograph and description as well as tips on growing conditions, planting, care, and harvesting and conditioning. Ever wonder which cut flowers require searing, splitting or dipping into boiling water? You'll find the answers here!

I happened on this book at my library and found it to be the most helpful and informative on cutting gardens, so I had to buy my own copy. This is the best I have found on cutting gardens because, not only does it cover what you need to know from the dirt to the final blossoms, but the encyclopedia of the plants is fantastic. The most helpful is the "HARVESTING AND CONDITIONING" information. My cut flowers where always dead by the next morning before I had this great information. This is a book you will refer to constantly. My copy already has those great dirty pages, a sign of a wonderful well used out in the garden book!

Although I'd rather grow plants indoors than cut flowers, there are moments when a fresh-cut bouquet of flowers can brighten up even the most dull day.

"One of the gardener's greatest pleasures is harvesting fragrant, colorful blossoms throughout the growing season. To bring fresh flowers indoors-with their heavenly scents, exquisite colors, and wonderful shapes and textures-is to bring indoors a little piece of paradise."

This is not an extensive book, but it is practical. The contents include:

Planning a Cutting Garden
Cutting Garden Plans
Growing Flowers for Cutting
Cutting and Arranging Flowers
Encyclopedia of Plants

You will also find page after page of freshly blooming flowers all in country-like
settings. The Encyclopedia of plants has a list of 200 plants with pictures. Each includes a description, planting zone information, planting information, care, harvesting and conditioning and uses.

Also includes:

Advice on planting seasonal selections.

Instructions on how to condition and arrange flowers so they last as long as possible.
Tips on designing with color and creating eye-catching color schemes.

Happy Gardening...

~The Rebecca Review

The purpose of a cutting garden is to provide cut flowers for arrangements. As such most gardeners who grow flowers specifically for cutting prefer to grow them (often in rows) in an area separated from the main garden so as not to denude the main garden when taking cuttings. Cutting gardens by their very nature are (or most often are) arranged for production, NOT for display. The uninformed or naive authors of this little book ignore this basic principle and waist quite a bit of space showing various garden plans - the worth of which (in a book on cutting gardens) leave this gardener scratching his head. Of some limited appeal is the encyclopedia of plants, but the authors once again are off target by making the listing very limited - typically describing just one or occasionally two species of a genius. Otherwise the book has some value as a very basic book on the topic with some quality photography by the well known garden photographer Derek Fell. It might serve briefly as coffee table book for a quick thumb-thru I suppose, but ultimately a book like this does not warrant space in my library. Overall I found this book disappointing and cannot recommend it to the serious gardener/flower arranger as a reference book.

This is my favorite garden book. I don't know what I would do without it. I love cutting flowers from my garden and without it I wouldn't know when or how. There is no other book on the market quite like it!Cutting Gardens: The Complete Guide to Growing Flowers and Creating Spectacular Arrangements for Every Season and Every Region