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Summary: Texas Outdoor Bible
Review: I've owned this book for several years. What started out to be a coffee table book has become too worn to keep out. I use this book very often in the planning and maintenance of my yard and flower beds. Very descriptive with wonderful pictures. I have given several as presents to friends and family.
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Summary: Disappointing, lacking basic plant information
Review: If you garden in Texas, this will not be a coffee table book for very long. I've given copies as gifts, loaned mine out, quoted it & thumbed through it daily for 10 years. Neil won't lead you astray...
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Summary: My perennial favorite
Review: If you garden in Texas, this will not be a coffee table book for very long. I've given copies as gifts, loaned mine out, quoted it & thumbed through it daily for 10 years. Neil won't lead you astray...
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Summary: Buy this book
Review: If you live in Texas and do anything with your lawn or garden, BUY this book immediately.Neil covers lawns, perennials, annuals, vegetables, trees, and shrubs in an exhaustive, comprehensive format. Full color pictures guide you through the basics of gardening these types, water and fertilizer, recommendations on your part of Texas, along with summaries of each plant. If the shrub/plant has pest problems, fungus issues or is high maintenance, Neil lays it out in a no B.S. manner that's both easy to read and handily referenced later. Every plant has a color picture associated, which helps a lot. The ONLY thing missing in his book would be house plants, but purchased "The House Plant Expert" for those. Amazon's price is a steal compared to my local bookstore - WELL WORTH the twenty-five bucks. It's a big, hardbound, monster-sized book that you'll constantly be referring back to again and again!
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Summary: Anti-organic chemical pusher
Review: Neil Sperry's knowledge of plant species is phenominal. It's too bad that he rejects organic gardening techniques in favor of chemicals. In fact, his love of pesticides makes him look like a poison salesman, complaining when one of his favorite neurotoxins is taken off of the market. He is just as enthusiastic for high-nitrogen chemical fertilizers over safer, soil-building organic fertilizers. For information on the plants themselves, this book is excellent, with its color photos and descriptions. But for planting, nourishing, and maintaining them, you're far better off finding an organic guide. I would suggest any of Howard Garrett's books. You might start with his new Organic Manual, which should offer his latest recommendations for building and maintaining healthy, flourishing gardens without the unnecessary, unhealthy, and ineffective poisons and chemicals that Mr. Sperry seems to love.
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Summary: A Must-Own for Texas Gardeners
Review: Texas is a different planet, and Neil Sperry has charted it. No other gardening book in the world prepares someone for the extreme climates, the hideous excuse for soil, and the vast assortment of herbaceous critters that exist in this state. You have to have this book to succeed in landscaping endeavors. The pages on my copy are well-worn. It is an excellent, easy-to-use reference bible. A bargain at twice the price.
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Summary: The bible of Texas gardening just got better.
Review: The completely revised and updated "Neil seven and Net map Complete Guide to Texas Plants" has: · 400 new plants · 500 new photographs · 400 new illustrations Other reviews should tell you what you would find in this book. I listened to Neil Sperry on the radio on weekends. So when I bought my new house I also decided to buy this book. A tree had already been planted in my front yard. So I used his botanical illustrations to determine what kind of tree it was. When designing raised guarded, I selected most of the plants from this book. On a visit to local nursery named Winston Gardens I found a beautiful wispy plant called River Privet. A planned this plant to hide the back fences and gives the impression of the forest. I found the plant in a one-paragraph statement in Neil's book. It was everything that he said. I should have looked closer at his varieties paragraph. Maybe he was trying to tell me something. In his radio show he said that they have a tendency to takeover. Ha, not that cute little thing. Three years later the privets are beautiful. However I find my weekends picking up privet-etts from the lawn. Bottom-line; don't just buy the book for the pictures. Read it.
Rating:
Summary: The bible of Texas gardening just got better.
Review: The completely revised and updated "Neil seven and Net map Complete Guide to Texas Plants" has: · 400 new plants · 500 new photographs · 400 new illustrations Other reviews should tell you what you would find in this book. I listened to Neil Sperry on the radio on weekends. So when I bought my new house I also decided to buy this book. A tree had already been planted in my front yard. So I used his botanical illustrations to determine what kind of tree it was. When designing raised guarded, I selected most of the plants from this book. On a visit to local nursery named Winston Gardens I found a beautiful wispy plant called River Privet. A planned this plant to hide the back fences and gives the impression of the forest. I found the plant in a one-paragraph statement in Neil's book. It was everything that he said. I should have looked closer at his varieties paragraph. Maybe he was trying to tell me something. In his radio show he said that they have a tendency to takeover. Ha, not that cute little thing. Three years later the privets are beautiful. However I find my weekends picking up privet-etts from the lawn. Bottom-line; don't just buy the book for the pictures. Read it.
Rating:
Summary: Best gardening book for the Texas Gardener bar none!
Review: This book is wonderfully informative. It has hundreds of color pictures to help you choose plants and covers the ones that are native or adapt very well to our climate. Don't be thinking you can check it out at the library. I live in Austin and they have dozens of copies but they are checked out at every branch. IT'S A MUST HAVE!
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Summary: Comprehensive, beautifully illustrated, but not easy to use
Review: This is my second favorite gardening book. It is very comprehensive with over 400 plant listings. It has descriptive listings of the different varieties of each species. The photographs are informative and beautifully shot. I am mot awarding 5 stars for the following reasons. Important information such as water needs is missing. The other information is poorly organized and forces you to read through a large description to find it. The chapter divisions are not usably organized. For example Dale Grooms Texas Gardening Guide has chapters on Annuals, another on Bulbs, Corms, Rhizomes, and Tubers, another on Native Wildflowers, another on Perennials, and a separate chapter on Roses. Dale Groom also has icons identifying Sun Preference and whether it is Drought Resistant. This is much easier to use. Well worth having in your library, but because it is not easy to use, it will probably not be the first book you reach for.
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