Customer Reviews

Roses for the Pacific Northwest

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While the pictures are terrible, the information is provided in a very straight-forward manner, with good, but not overly romantic descriptions of the various roses. I'm a newcomer to roses, and I've been frustrated by the tendency of most writers to describe every rose in very general terms. I've grown weary of reading: "One of the best of it's class." Allen does none of this; moreover, she is up front about what probably won't work well. Bourbons, she says, are likely to ball and be a disappointment in the rainy parts of the PNW. Now, for someone like me, just getting started, that's very useful information I have not seen elsewhere.

I'm withholding one star because of the pictures. It's just a guess, but I think the printer, not the photographer is to blame for the poor quality

This is an excellent reference book for growing roses in this region, including specific rose recommendations. I wish there were a new edition, as this one is about 5 years old and therefore doesn't include any newer roses (and has a fairly small section on David Austin's English roses). Don't buy it for the photographs, though, which are almost all dreadful - terribly underexposed, and the colors of the roses are completely off (for instance, Fragrant Cloud, which is a bright orange-red, looks almost purple in this book's photograph).