 |
|
Title: Perennial Combinations: Stunning Combinations That Make Your Garden Look Fantastic Right from the Start (Rodale Garden Book)
ISBN: 1594868530
Author:
C. Colston Burrell
Publicate Date: 2008-02-19
Publish: 2008-02-19
List Price: $22.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
 |
|
|
|
|
Amazon Lowest New Price: $12.73
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $14.68
Amazon Merchant Price: $15.61
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customer Review: |
|
1: An amazing reference guide for landscape design
If you've ever drooled over perfectly arranged landscapes designed with fabulous color combinations, texture, and an array of plants all sizes and shapes who's colors are pleasing to the eye, this book is your tool. There are many garden companies that offer pre-designed gardens, but they're expensive and sometimes have plants that you just don't care for. This book gives you ideas, plans, tips on how to combine plants in such a way that it looks like a professional landscaper came and did all the work. Every design is wonderful, the photography is superb and the gardens are beautiful. A real asset for anyone who wants to have a beautiful garden without paying a designer/landscaper to do it for you. A great book.
|
2: a huge help for one new to gardening
Being pretty new to perennials but having read many books I was having sort of a writers block when it came to WHAT to put in my new garden.
I knew all about HOW but with so many choices I was overwhelmed!
This book has a good number of templates to give you a jump start and many outstanding photos of combinations of flowers that work together. In fact this has some of the best photos I have ever seen in a garden book.
It also covers difficult situations like what works in Heavy Clay and wet sites an so forth.
My plan was a butterfly garden and they had the perfect template for a 12x8 garden.
Excellent book for beginners or people that are looking for new combinations!! My fav book so far. (out of the 30 I have looked at).
|
3: Decent book, lousy photos
One of the drawbacks of buying gardening books online is that you can't see the photos. If I had thumbed through this book I don't think I would have purchased it. Not that it doesn't have a lot of good information and ideas. It's just that the photos are, for the most part, awful. The color is garish and over-saturated and the images actually look blurry. Also, many of the plant combo photos are very close up, which doesn't help when you are trying to figure out how to place your perennials when planting. For me, a good gardening book has to not only give useful information and how-tos (which this book does for the most part), but it has to inspire with lovely photos! And that is where this book fails.
|
4: No Juice
This book was (is) a big disappointment, containing as it does nothing new regarding perennnial combining that isn't covered in at least a dozen or more recent and more interesting books, not to mention the classics. This is perennial combining 202 with no spark of imagination in the pairings that can make a garden jump for joy. The photography is so ordinary and the color is extremly garish. Is that due to the Digital Imaging Specialists Dale Mack and Jane Ramsey or what? I can find no photographic credits (except for the cover) which is probably just as well. Obviously in a book this size (351 pages), from someone who is as accomplished as Mr. Burrell, there is useful information to be gleaned but I already have books that serve that purpose. If I had seen this in a book store, having thumbed through it for a few moments, I would never have bought it. However, if you are just beginning your library of perennial books this one may be useful to you.
|
5: Love This Book
Although I have a plethora of gardening books, this one stands out as one of my favorites. It shows a picture example on every page. It has planting diagrams (garden plans) so you can duplicate what you see and it gives a lot of information about the plants. It's the best of both worlds - you can use the information and get creative, or follow the plans and duplicate what you see. Either way, you'll have a great garden!
Although I've been gardening for a good many years, it's nice to have a reference as to how things will look together, instead of my usual "plant it here and hope for the best" approach! I'm tired of moving my plants every year.
I bought my book over the winter and it's a great "dream" book. Now I can't wait till I can get out there and put it all to good use!
|
|
|
|
|
