Eyewitness Garden Handbooks: Annuals and Biennials [Paperback]

Alan Toogood (Author)

Book Description

Series: Eyewitness Garden Handbooks | Publication Date: October 1, 1997

Packed with more than 600 photographs of over 500 plants, Annuals and Biennials is an inspiring handbook to help you identify, choose, and grow your favorite varieties.

Packed with more than 600 photographs of over 500 plants, Annuals & Biennials is an inspiring handbook to help you identify, choose and grow your favorite varieties. Discover at a glance the full range of annuals and biennials available. Each entry combines a plant portrait with a concise botanical description, plus cultivation and propagation details. Helpful symbols indicate preferred growing conditions and cold hardiness. If you want a specific leaf or flower color, the Plant Catalog will offer you the perfect specimen. All the essential considerations, such as selecting plants, preparing the ground, watering, mulching, feeding, weeding, and pest control, are clearly explained. Propagation methods, from sowing seeds to planting out, are also given. Whether you are planting a new garden or seeking new features of interest for an established one, Annuals & Biennials is your indispensable, portable gardening companion.

A lavishly illustrated flexibound, Eyewitness Garden Handbooks are the user-friendly guides that identify every type of garden plant with up to ten salient features, at-a-glance information on height, spread, and color, and useful cultivation symbols. There are also separate sections on gardening skills and a complete index of common names.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This guide compiled with the help of internationally known horticulturists Alan Toogood and Linden Hawthorne is the latest addition to DK's fine "Eyewitness Garden Handbook" series. The plants are arranged by size and then color, beginning with white and proceeding around the color wheel. Each entry includes the family name, botanical name, and common name of each plant, followed by a description of growth habit, possible locations/uses for the plant, and propagation tips. Symbols for growing conditions provide cultivation advice. The hardiness zones of North America, a guide to planting and care, and a glossary contribute to the wealth of detail. Though not all common names are cross-referenced, this is a minor drawback. The quality of the 600-plus color photographs alone would recommend this book for all gardening collections.?Nancy Lee Myers, Univ. of South Dakota Lib., Vermillion
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Alan Toogood trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and at Brighton Parks and Gardens Department before going on to a two-year internship at the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden at Wisley. He worked as a horticultural journalist, editor, and lecturer, and is now a freelance horticultural journalist and consultant. He has written many books, contributes to horticultural journals, and is horticulture correspondent for The Times of London.

Linden Hawthorne is a professional horticulturist, writer, and editor of a number of horticultural reference works, including The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: DK ADULT (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789419831
• ISBN-13: 978-0789419835
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,076,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eyewitness handbooks can't be beat!, April 8, 2002

By 

Tracy Palmer "justluckyiguess" (Winthrop, ME USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eyewitness Garden Handbooks: Annuals and Biennials (Paperback)

Eyewitness handbooks are wonderful. I bought this one based on my success with others on such subjects as aquarium fish, horses, and other garden books. I have plenty of plant books with black and white drawings or simple word descriptions of the plant (NOT very useful) but I had none with beautiful full color photographs. This book is organized by the color (white, yellow, purple/blue) and the size of the plant (large, medium or small) This was not terribly helpful to me as I was trying to find plants that were suitable for certain areas of my yard: full sun, part shade, etc. However, I adjusted and soon came to like the arrangement. I found the index useful, although some scientific names will forever be foreign to me. There was an attempt to list common names with a "see...." reference, but this was not thorough. This, when weighed against the stengths of the book (ie the color photography, details of each plant, overall organization and comprehensive coverage), does not detract from its usefulness and my appreciation of the book as a whole. This book is an excellent reference book that will be a credit to my (small) library. Buy it and enjoy!