Garden Color Book [Spiral-bound]

Paul Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2000

Flippable, flexible, and comprehensive, this garden's version of The Color Book (over 100,000 copies sold!) is a must-have for gardeners with an eye for the big picture. Presented in the same interactive format as its popular predecessor, The Garden Color Book includes over 600 photographs of individual plants displayed horizontally in swatches by colorthat let you flip back and forth, mixing and matching until you find the perfect color scheme. By showing what color blossoms a bulb or shrub will have when in bloom, this indispensable gardening reference allows you to imagine how a summer plot might look planted with a sea of flame red penstemon accented by some sky blue salvias or a spring border of lime green euphorbia. With concise plant profiles covering propagation and bloom, as well as season and zone information, and more than 340,000 combinations, gardener's will be sure to find their ideal garden color palettebefore putting trowel to earth.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The colors alone are enough to guarantee this book being a favorite for any flower enthusiast with a green thumb. The Garden Color Book is a feast for both the eyes and the imagination, and it's unique flip-book style (lifted from those mix-and-match children's picture books) make the possible combinations seem endless. While you'll be eager to skip ahead and get right into playing with the page strips, there's some important information in the beginning, including the key code for the various needs of each plant, zone hardiness, light and water requirements, and special concerns. So once you've paid your dues, let the fun begin! Each page of plants is cut into three horizontal strips, one level each for tall, medium, and short plants, and then separated into color groupings--the vivid indigos, bright oranges, and cool silver foliage are photographed beautifully, shown off to perfection with clear close ups. The back of each preceding strip contains squares of information about each plant, so as you're admiring, you merely have to glance to the left to learn whether it's appropriate for your space and conditions. With a clear plastic cover and sturdy spiral binding, this is a book to take outside with you, or pass around the garden club for group inspiration. --Jill Lightner

About the Author

Paul Williams is an expert horticulturist with the flair for creating striking plant combos and color schemes. He lives in England.

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 176 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (April 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811828344
• ISBN-13: 978-0811828345
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #406,946 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not that useful, July 22, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Garden Color Book (Spiral-bound)

I had hoped to use this book to look up specific perennials and compare their colors, but most of the flowers I had in mind were not included in the book. There are 639 plants covered, not just perennials, but annuals, bulbs, vines, and shrubs as well. So considering that there are thousands of varieties of flowers, the chances of finding a particular flower are slim. This book is better used without a specific plant in mind, but to browse through to get ideas of plants of a particular color.

Also, there seems to be a warm climate bias. Many of the plants (not just annuals) are for zones 8 and up. I think northern gardeners would find this a frustrating book to use.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most Helpful Garden Planning Tool, May 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Garden Color Book (Spiral-bound)

This book solves the problem for so many of us weekend gardeners who are looking for colorful combinations for our beds that work together, but don't have the time to sit and match pictures of plants to get the color scheme correct. Unlike most gardening books that provide you with garden designs too cluttered with foliage to get the impact of the flowers' colors, this book gives you combinations that work in one reference source. It's easy to use, providing a great variety of plants and information for any gardener, but the most useful point is the garden color palette it provides. This book is well worth the purchase just in the time it saves me that I used to spend planting and then transplanting plants to different locations because they didn't work with the surrounding bed. There is nothing more jarring to the eye than looking at a garden bed and seeing that one color that just doesn't work with the others. This is a perfect book for any gardener, from beginner to expert.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The perfect format, June 7, 2000

By 

"brendabarger" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Garden Color Book (Spiral-bound)

Wow...what a lot of fun. The three strips of mix-and-match flip pages are the perfect interactive format for letting your own eye experiment with different color combinations. The consistent quality of the photographs and color printing make it easy to compare how even subtle shifts in color have a powerful design impact. The author's own remarkable plant combinations on each strip are fascinating in themselves. Not just pretty pictures either- the back of each strip identifies the plant, descibes its culture and growing habits and also offers some very good suggestions for plant combinations. One of my all-time favorite garden design books.