Customer Reviews

Subtropical Plants: A Practical Gardening Guide

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Subtropical Plants is a lovely picture book of familiar tropical and subtropical plants. I don't endorse the subtitle: it is more a picture dictionary than a "practical gardening guide". I bought the book largely on the strength of the excellent "Subtropical Gardening", a book that I thought had been put together by the same team (same photographer, different writer, as it turns out). The difference in the names of the titles points out the difference in the scopes of the books. Subtropical Gardening is about gardening in a subtropical style and includes the notion that plants that are not of subtropical provenance can still be used to lend the subtropical effect. Subtropical Plants is about plants that are subtropical or tropical by their very constitution. Sadly, many interesting New Zealand plants are left out (there are no tree ferns, for instance) while more assertively tropical genera like Colvillea, Delonix and Artocarpus are given full treatment. Perhaps the biggest downfall of the book is that full hardiness is presumed for all and there is little discussion as to the climatic limitations of the various plants. This makes it particularly difficult to use in countries like the U.S., where there is a broad variety of climates in which "subtropical" gardening is carried out.
The pictures are generally quite good, but focus on individual plants rather than broad garden vistas. Several are re-crops from "Subtropical Gardening".

One of the amusing editorial goofs in this book is that some computer glitch causes the letters "us" to be transformed to "United States" in several cases. For example, under Araucaria, the paragraph begins, "Sturdy giant conifers make up this genUnited States,...". Under Hymenosporum the paragraph begins, "From subtropical rainforest of eastern AUnited Statestralia and New Guinea,...". I'm always amazed that such obvious mistakes aren't caught by proof-readers and I'm down-grading it a star on account of the sloppy editing.

This is very much a gardening book, offering a selection of the author's favorite plants. The format chosen is a series of brief entries on genera that contain some ornamental species. Each entry starts with a sketch of what the genus is used for, followed by a sketch of some species and what they are used for. A typical entry is a quarter of a page or so. Alternatively such an entry might be described as a few lines on a favorite species, preceded by a few lines on the genus and a few lines on a companion species. Information given is on gardening only and apparently very limited in accuracy (the author proclaims that Coffea has only a single important species!).

One in every two entries is accompanied by a color picture of a fifth to half a page. The pictures are of good quality but printed too small (and too dark?) to make this a coffee table book. The book is neither fish nor fowl. Overpriced, from every angle.

Although the focus in on suitable plants for warm climate gardeners, the stunning photos and informative text make this a useful reference for anyone interested in these lovely plants. Organized by type of plant, and well-indexed, the book guides the reader in selecting trees, shrubs, climbers, cacti, orchids, and other types of subtropical plants.Sufficient detail is given in the descriptions to get the gardener well started, and often alternatives are suggested should a particular plant be unavailable. The introduction refers briefly to suitable hardscaping, and some of the photos give examples, although most are close-ups more helpful for identification than for landscape design. For additional information on a number of these plants, see Ornamental Plants & Flowers of Tropical Mexico.