From Library Journal
The author, a well-known gardening writer who served as gardening editor for Southern Living for 13 years, has compiled a useful and entertaining book of lists for Southern gardeners. It's helpful when catalogs group together plants that do well in sun or shade and code other horticultural characteristics, but Chaplin goes further, offering lists of annuals that withstand heavy rain, roses that provide fragrance, perennials suited to heavy clay soil, and, this reviewer's favorite, vines feared for their vigor. Noted experts have assisted in compiling the lists. Altogether, there are more than 200 lists in nine categories, with appropriateness for upper South, middle South, lower South, and coastal areas indicated. Recommended for public libraries in the South. (Index not seen.)-Carol Cubberley, Univ. of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Chaplin's recommendations for trees, perennials, azaleas, roses, and other plants are aimed at gardeners who live in the country's southern regions, including those living the farthest south, who find it most difficult to gather dependable data. More than 1,000 plant varieties are listed with Latin and common names and notations as to appropriate areas for greatest planting success. The survey of trees alone includes 50 lists that span cultivation requirements, design uses, and practical considerations ("weak wood or structural problems"), with other lists citing tree choices for topiary or windbreaks, fast-growing types, etc. Black-and-white illustrations and line drawings will accompany the text.
Alice Joyce
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