Penstemons

Rating:
Summary: An indispensable guide and reference for gardeners.
Review: Packed with color photos and botanical illustrations is this intriguing guide to penstemons, outlining a wide range of species both common and rare. Enjoy a range of choices which can be used in both dry and marshy gardens across the country, concluded by a mail order source guide.

Rating:
Summary: Not very useful for general horticultural purposes
Review: This book is of great merit for some potential readers, but is not useful for the majority of gardeners, for a number of reasons:

1) The bulk of the book is textual and technical species descriptions, useful only for botanists and those aiming to collect from the wild.

2) The photos are a very limited selection compared to the above and they are inconveniently placed in two "plates" sections in the middle of the book (an understandable decision as it keeps production costs down).

3) The species descriptions and especially the photos are very heavily focused on the Western semi-desert, mountainous and scree-living species. That may reflect the reality of the Penstemon's origins, but I think many, if not most potential purchasers of a book on Penstemons would be interested in more coverage of plants useful in a conventional garden scheme. But such plants and their cultural requirements take up maybe 5% of this book.

In short, if you are a Western-highland gardener looking for species xeriscape plants, this book will prove useful. If you are a botanist, or if you aim to collect, breed and hybridize Penstemons, then this book is of even greater value. But if you want to add Penstemons to a more conventional garden scheme, then it is close to useless.

Rating:
Summary: Very heavy on the botany...
Review: VERY heavy on the botany and botanical terms; not enough practical advice on growing each of the mentioned species in a garden setting. This is really something of a botanist's guide to penstemons, NOT necessarily a gardening guide, and definitely NOT for beginners. Unfortunately, the book also can't really be used as a field guide either since it doesn't contain enough photos or illustrations to help with identification of penstemons (at least for non-botanists).

While the photos and paintings that are included are beautiful, I really wanted to see photos of all or most of the species mentioned because I expected to use this as an aide in identifying penstemons. More photos, especially of common species that I would have expected to be included, would have greatly enhanced this book. And making the book less botanist-oriented would probably have helped with its popularity and usefulness to the general gardening public.

This book DOES describe each of the different species (in mostly technical botanical terms) and sometimes gives an overall idea of where they grow in nature (and occasionally, how to grow them in the garden). But the descriptions are not meant for the average person and are not very helpful when trying to identify specific plants.

There still is no one good book for the average person that describes each species, gives growing tips, and offers enough photos/illustrations for identifying penstemons...