Customer Reviews

Growing Shrubs and Small Trees in Cold Climates

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I have had this book for a few years now and used it extensively. I am in north central Iowa, zone 4, and this book has helped me to choose shrubs and small trees that can withstand my extremely bitter cold winters. What I love about this book is there are many photos, many nursery resources listed, and it is full of very valuable information.

If you are gardening/landscaping in a cold climate and need to know which cultivar's can survive in zone 4 or 3 or 2 then you need to have this book.

How wonderful to have a book that provides the level of detail made available here for those of us who shiver through our winters and worry about whether the new additions to the garden are as hardy as the garden center promised.

The details? Everything from pronunciation to names of various suppliers. How to plant, feed and prune and informed odds about whether a particular plant will survive transplanting. Plants aren't merely promised to be hardy; charts give the specific temperature to which varieties will survive. The charts also show information about flower color and fruit, the plant's anticipated size, and comments about the variety's assets and liabilities for the home gardener.

Photographs are large enough to show detail and convey actual information: aspects of a particular plant or its appearance in different seasons, and variables among varieties.

This is a fine book and, in my view, unusual in that it is certainly well worth its sticker price. It is organized like an encyclopedia, notwithstanding some useful material in chapters outside the alphabetized plant list. As such, it does not have an index -- which might be useful -- and some of the text can be recursive. But these are minor flaws in an outstandingly useful and beautifully published book.

This book has been more helpful to us in many different areas. It explains everything from how and when to prune to how and when to fertilize. It shows both common name and scientific name in the table of contents to quickly find what you're looking for. If you are looking for a book that explains how to take care of everything available in the cold northeast, this is the book for you. Gardeners can't go wrong with this book.

A handsome piece of work from Contemporary Books: large hardback, 4.25 pounds, 432 pp, color illustrations. Tables, graphs, maps.

TABLE OF CONTENTS HIGHLIGHTS
Part I: The Most Popular Shrubs and Small Trees

Part II: The Basics of Growing Shrubs and Small Trees
- Selecting Shrubs and Small Trees
- Selecting and Preparing a Site
- Preparing the Planting Hole
- Planting Shrubs and Small Trees
- Transplanting
- Caring for Shrubs and Small Trees
- Solving Problems
- Propagating Shrubs and Small Trees
- Special Uses for Shrubs and Small Trees
- Tools and Supplies

Glossary

This is a great book with lots of details. It is a very good reference book.