Customer Reviews

Taylor's Guide to Shade Gardening: More Than 350 Trees, Shrubs, and Flowers That Thrive Under Difficult Conditions, Illustrated with Color Photographs and Detailed Drawings (Taylor's Guides)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book without knowing what a great help it would prove to be. My lot is mostly shade, acidic soil and clay below. The publisher got it right with the size and layout of this series, you can put the book in a pocket, head out to the nurseries and while viewing their selections, check the book for the finer details. There are vast listings of shade plants shown in color, with detailed qualites listed as well, including zone, dryness, soil ph. The fabric spine keeps the pages from falling out after many flattenings. Excellent reference and buying guide for shade gardening. My copy is getting nicely dog-eared and soil stained. Well worn.

The Taylor's Guides are very reliable sources for gardening information and great pictures, and the Shade Gardening Guide is one of the best. Shade gardening is difficult for many reasons. There are not that many very showy flowers for seasons other than Spring, and there are many types of shade. The descriptions are very specific and helpful: light shade, dappled shade, "the more shade, the less moisture is needed," and so on. The soil and shade descriptions for each plant are excellent and detailed.

Although the plants are listed alphabetically for the cultural requirements, the pictures are listed by groups: trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, summer bulbs, ground covers, vines, grasses, and ferns. I would recommend that people using the book for plant selection read the "Encyclopedia of Plants" part as well as the brief but good descriptions with the color pictures.

Keep in mind too that the flowering times are primarily for New England (zone 5). Furthur South you may get earlier and more flowers. For example, Ceratostigma is listed as an Autumn bloomer, while in PA, it blooms from July through October. So you get more than the book suggests. Not bad. Anyone with shade should experiment with the plants in this book. As a gardening professional, I see so many great and underused plants listed and described in this book.

Having recently purchased a condo in Houston with a north-facing porch, I eagerly awaited delivery of this book. However, I was quickly disappointed. This book should be titled "Shade Gardening in the North," since virtually all of the plants listed are for Zones 5 and lower...not much help for my Zone 9 garden. It did contain a couple of pages of information for shade gardening in the South (which they consider to be North Carolina!), but I was really looking for specific information on the types of shade plants I could plant here. This would have been a great book if I lived in Ohio, but not so good for us Texans.

This wonderful little book (thick, but only 4.27" wide) is an absolute necessity for anyone who wishes to do some gardening in a shady area. In fact, this book is really three books rolled into one. The first section looks at shade and shade gardening, it is straightforward and highly informative. The second section is entitled The Color Plates, and gives a long list of shade-loving plants, including a very nice color picture, and a highly informative description. The third section goes hand-in-hand with the second, and gives more in-depth information.

This book is really great, a must have for those of us who wish to do some gardening in a shady area. I highly recommend this book to all gardeners!

This is a great reference for those gardening in shade. It is organized in a logical format and can be easily used. The photos are nice and the information helpful as plants are considered for a shade garden. While it may not be adequate for those gardening in the deep south, it is very well suited to zones 5,6, and 7.

This book is really great. I live in Zone 6, but found that some of my best flowers an also thrive in Zones 3 and 4, amazingly. The author does state that trial and error is the best method to go about a shade garden but he also catagorizes the differences between the intensities of shade. Really a great book, lots of information. Will be using it over the winter to choose what I will plant in the Spring.

This is the first "Taylor's Guide" I have ever owned, so I don't know if this unusual format is a standard of their publications. It's about 9" high and over an inch thick, but only 4" wide! This means that you do have to crack the spine in order to comfortably read the information on the inner margins of the pages. I hate having to do that with books, but it was unavoidable here.

Content looks good and I hope to find it useful as we tackle the northern side of our property, which only gets about 1 hour of sun a day.

I wanted to get this for a person who is looking into shade gardening. So I wanted to get it early to have for Christmas.

This is a nice book. What I enjoy about it is there are a lot of good, REAL pictures instead of just sketches of the plants. I have a lot of trees on my property so I'm looking forward to using some of the recommendations contained in the guide.

Provides lots of interesting gardening information if you are planting only trees and shrubs. Book does not detail anything for vegetable gardeners. Title should be changed to include the word "Forestry" rather than the broad term 'gardening".