Perennial All-Stars: The 150 Best Perennials for Great-Looking, Trouble-Free Gardens [Hardcover]

Jeff Cox (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1998

Create the perennial garden you've always dreamed of with an illustrated guide to 150 of the best. Perennial All Stars is a trustworthy guide and tour through the jungle of perennials that are available from nurseries, garden centers, and mailorder sources.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jeff Cox provides the information new gardeners want in Perennial All-Stars: how to produce a garden full of healthy, attractive, low-maintenance plants. Cox, the enthusiastic host of HGTV's &Grow It!, has selected 150 perennials, both flowers and grasses, that grow well in North American climates. Each double-page plant entry tells how and where to grow the plant, how to propagate it, and a list of ideal planting partners. In addition, each entry displays a quick-glance sidebar that includes ideal hardiness zones, blooming season, size, color, light and soil requirements, and a substantial list of plant sources (detailed in the back of the book). Cox further assists the beginning garden planner with useful groupings: "Fragrant All-Stars," "Deer-Resistant All- Stars," "All-Stars for Full Shade," "All-Stars 4 Feet or Taller," and so forth. It's in no way intended to replace a complete plant encyclopedia, but novices will be happy with the excellent selection and informative, friendly format of Perennial All-Stars. --Barrie Trinkle

Review

"Another very welcome addition to books on perennials for new gardeners. Enjoyable and informative!" -- Fredrick McGourty, author of The Perennial Gardener and co-owner of Hillside Gardens, Norfolk, Connecticut

"In his quest for the perfect perennial, Jeff Cox has settled on not one, but 150 of the finest, easy care plants available today. They excel in flower, fragrance,foliage, fruit, fall color, and finesse. Whether you have wet or dry soil, sun or shade, you will find beautiful and serviceable plants to lay the foundation for a successful perennial garden." -- C. Colston Burrell, author of A Gardener's Encyclopedia of Wildflowers and co-author of Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Perennials

"This book will help you put the right plant in the right location. Jeff Cox has selected the best of the best, and he presents these perennials in a precise, easy to understand way that will be valuable to the novice and the experienced gardener alike. Whether you have a small or large garden, this book is a wonderful resource for planning a beautiful perennial garden. And the I information in this book will not become outdated, since an all -- star perennial will always remain an all star."(Andre Viette, president, Andre Viette Farm & Nursery, Fishersville, Virginia

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Press (February 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875967809
• ISBN-13: 978-0875967806
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #446,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Expert Advice > Jeff Cox

More About the Author

For the first eight years of my life, I was a suburban kid in Manhasset, New York. Then we moved to the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania where I learned to hunt, fish, eat wild foods, and swim in pristine waters of spring-fed creeks. Then I lived in Manhattan. So I'm at home just about anywhere. My experiences in the country, though, were the most important, leading me through newspaper and magazine work to Organic Gardening magazine, where I developed a love of gardening and landscaping. Now I'm a wine writer for many magazines and the restaurant reviewer for Northern California's newspaper of record, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, here in the heart of the Wine Country. I'm also a contributing editor to The Wine News and Horticulture magazines. I've written 18 books on food, wine, and gardening,--many of which are available on Amazon.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great reference source for the beginning gardener, August 25, 2003

By 

Tanya V. "Bookwyrm" (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perennial All-Stars: The 150 Best Perennials for Great-Looking, Trouble-Free Gardens (Paperback)

I moved into my first house and wanted to get started with some perennial plants. But the variety out there was staggering! My library had some very comprehensive sources, but mostly I found them intimidating -- too many options, too much information to sort through!

Then I discovered "Perennial All-Stars." I'm so covetous of this book that I went out and bought it, even though there's a copy available in my local library. The book begins with a number of lists, the type of sun/shade they prefer, their flowering season, those that attract butterflies and birds, by flower color... this book's got a list for anything I could think of!

Then each of the all-star plants has two pages devoted to it. These two pages tell you where the plant prefers to grow, the ideal location for planting, some other recommended cultivars of the species, when and how to separate the plants. Even better, each article includes a list of possible "neighbor" plants, which makes it much easier for a beginner to try and plan their garden.

The pictures accompanying each article are beautiful and helpful. In most cases, they included a photo that managed to highlight both the leaves and the flowers, and the photo also managed to highlight the shape of the plant. I had grown very frustrated with books that showed me close-ups of leaves or flowers, or the whole plant from far away, so that I had difficulty really "seeing" the plant. Not so with this book!

I also appreciated the quality of the index, which not only included the "common" names and Latin names, but also references to the neighbor plants under the Latin name. It's a great, comprehensive index that made it easy to locate the plants I wanted.

I'd combed through back issues of our local paper and found several articles in which local experts recommended plants for our area. These experts all agreed with Jeff Cox! All but one of the plants they recommended appeared in this book, and in most cases it was even the same cultivar!

If you're looking for a guide to an old-fashioned garden, or if you want a guide to setting up "color-themed" gardens, there are other sources out there for you. But if you are starting out with gardening, or just want a spectacular reference source for the best hardy perennials out there, this is a great book to have.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic organization and really easy to use., October 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Perennial All-Stars: The 150 Best Perennials for Great-Looking, Trouble-Free Gardens (Hardcover)

As a novice gardener, I found this book to be the best of the 10 or so I've looked at to educate myself. Fantastically easy to use. The best feature: the many lists that cover categories such as "Best for Shade," "Fragrant Perennials," etc. Having plants listed in each category helped me narrow down the perennials that made the most sense for the constraints of my yard. In addition, it was great to have a photo of every flower in the book (most books DON'T do this) and the information included in each perennial's profile was very helpful and concise. I could learn, at a glance, the best planting/siting conditions and also get an idea of companion plants to use. I wish more flower & plant books were organized the same way this book is organized and formatted!!

One improvement for this book in the next edition: put the summary info from the "Spotlight" section on a computer-readable file so that readers can electronically arrange and sort their perennial choices by color, season of bloom, etc...

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Overview of the Most Popular Perennials, August 14, 2000

By 

K. Coppens (Bridgman, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perennial All-Stars: The 150 Best Perennials for Great-Looking, Trouble-Free Gardens (Hardcover)

This beautiful book will be a prized addition to my collection. The photos are breathtaking. Each section dedicated to a different perennial tells the reader how to grow it, how to propagate it, where the perennial should be planted and when, and what other flowers would be great companions to the highlighted plant. Mr. Cox has divided the plants into different categories, some of which include seasonal blooming, height ranges, color groups, location (sunny/shady), and even those that are fragrant and attract hummers and butterflies. I will definitely add Mr. Cox's other books to my wishlist!