Customer Reviews

The Texas Flowerscaper

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

 

 

I have lived in Texas for 15 years, this is a must have selection for your garden. The Texas flowerscaper gives you great references as well as care for each plant. Also many tips about which plants need alot of water for each region. Excellent book!!

This book is incredibly useful. It tells you everything you need to know and is well illustrated. It shows a close up of the plant and a view of the entire plant. But the best thing is that the pages are split three ways according to the plant's height. So you can mix and match pages to see how different height plants work together. It also has all the information about plants, sun, water, propagation, etc. I recommend this book highly to anyone landscaping in Texas and many of the plants work in other states as well.

High marks for creativity, uniqueness and just plain fun. The book is spiral bound so it will lay flat. This makes it easy to use. More importantly each page has been divided horizontally into three independent sections. The flowers on the top section of the divided page are tall with a height range of 3-6 foot. The flowers in the middle section of the divided page are in the medium height range of 1-3 feet. The flowers on the bottom third of the divided page are of a low height ranging from 1 inch to 1 foot. So by choosing different top, middle and bottom sections you can get an idea of how the staggered heights of the flowers in your bed would appear simultaneously. By flipping back and forth between different choices for the top, middle, and bottom sections (which move independently of one another because of the division into three seperate sections) you can compare various color, height, and texture combinations. Alternatively use it to compare flowers that bloom in the cool season, those that bloom in the warm season, and those that bloom year round and get an idea of how your bed will appear over time as the seasons change.

There are 138 tall, 138 medium and 138 short flowering plants illustrated. Happily this is unique entries, that is, there is not 20 separate entries for tulips. So you are being introduced to many lesser-known varieties of flowering plants for Texas.

The general information is printed on a soothing happy shade of yellow paper. The wording is informative without being dry.

I am not awarding 5 stars for two reasons. First the illustrations are hand painted. While it is great that there is a close up of the bloom, as well as an illustration of the entire plant, this is not as informative as an actual photograph. Secondly because of the split page structure there is only a single paragraph for each plant listing. This leaves out some important information, such as pest problems (I see that disease problems are mentioned.)

I recommend this book for its fun factor. It would make a great gift for any Texas gardener. Give it a try!

I gave this book only 4 stars because I was disappointed in the pictures of the flowers. I think that the concept of the book is wonderful, but the watercolor pictures were very simple -- you can't really tell what the plants look like. One would definitely be able to use this book to get an idea of what they wanted in the garden when planning, but they would need an additional book with better pictures to really 'see' what the garden will look like.

Overall, I'm very glad I have the book, and it will be a wonderful addition to my gardening library.