Giant Perennials: Star Performers for the Garden

Rating:
Summary: Basic guidelines to planting for all occasions
Review: Filled cover to cover with spectacular full-color photographs, Giant Perennials: Star Performers For The Garden by gardening expert Susan Berry showcases a wide variety of beautiful and hardy plants to spruce up one's garden. Basic guidelines to planting for all occasions round out this eye-catching guide especially designed for those looking to choose the right sort of perennial to match the tone of their overall garden environment. Also available in a paperback edition Giant Perennials is a splendid and enthusiastically recommended addition to personal, professional, garden club, and community library Gardening & Horticultural reference collections.

Rating:
Summary: Bold and beautiful plants
Review: This is a fairly basic book that will help new, or fairly new gardeners select and grow large perennials. Perennials - flowers that bloom year after year - are the backbone of many gardens. However many people with small city lots hesitate to grow larger perennials, fearing they might appear out-of-scale with the size of the property. I was one of those people until I got tempted by lupins, red hot pokers and foxgloves. (Too bad, I thought, if passers-by couldn't see the house for the flowers. In fact the larger flowers make a dramatic statement and draw attention rather than hiding the house.)

So I was encouraged when the writer mentioned that she also grew large perennials on a very small lot. The perennials described in the book usually reach a height of five feet or more, and are often placed at the back of the border so they don't hide smaller plants. The writer is knowledgeable on the topic of larger perennials and the first 40 pages discuss where and how to plant, plant care, propagation, and pests and diseases.

The remaining 100 pages are a plant directory of tall perennials, nicely illustrated with color photographs. The description of each plant has all the information the gardener needs about height, spread, light requirements, and soil and drainage preferences. The writer also gives suggestions for combination plantings and offers advice on topics such as staking requirements and how to keep pets at bay.

Buy this book for someone who is fairly new to gardening. It may encourage them to take a step towards bolder and more structural plantings.