The Flower Gardener's Bible: A Complete Guide to Colorful Blooms All Season Long: 400 Favorite Flowers, Time-Tested Techniques, Creative Garden Designs, and a Lifetime of Gardening Wisdom

This book is a great reference for gardening. Filled with specifics and many pictures, a first time gardener can plant anything with this book. Very helpful. Great buy

This book is a comprehensive guide to gardening. Part One, fully a third of the book, contains the how-tos of making your garden successful, from preparing the soil, to managing pests, to properly caring for and feeding your plants. Part Two, called the Gallery of Gardens, is all about designing your garden. It contains the cartoon drawings of specific kinds of gardens like you see in Sunset Magazine and Better Homes & Gardens magazine. Garden suggestions are provided for shade gardens, rock gardens, butterfly and bird gardens, cottage gardens, rose gardens, scent gardens, and about 16 other examples. Speaking of scent, this book really stinks; it smells like an unperfumed, industrial soap. I don't know if it came off the presses smelling this way, or if it was doctored later. The final third of the book is devoted to an alphabetical list of the typical plants you will find in different regions of America, lists of cultivars, discussions of their growing characteristics, and small-to quarter page photographs of species. And I do mean typical; there did not seem to be any plants or flowers that are out of the ordinary. Even ones that might sound unusual, like Chinese lantern, Heavenly bamboo, or Aztec lily (which is really just an amaryllis) are quite common in certain geographical areas in this country. I have at least a passing knowlege of nearly all of the plants in the book, and I figure that if I know them, they can't be that unusual. The main problem I have with this section, as in most flower books, is that the plants are listed in alphabetic order by their scientific names, which most people don't even know. One must continually be turning to the index in the back of the book when looking for a certain plant that you know only by its common name. That being said, this is a very useful compendium and better, I think, than many of the cheaper, more popular guides offered by such publishers as Better Homes & Gardens.

I started a flower garden in my yard this summer and quickly realized I needed a plant information source to help me decide what plants would work well together. This is a large, thick book, absolutely full of beautiful photos and loads of facts. I remember thinking that it seemed as if the authors attempted to provide every ounce of information they could about each plant. I highly recommend this source for those who want a garden but don’t know what they want to plant. I’m sure I’ll be referring back to this one for years.

I have not read all of this book yet, but I have a "black" thumb---meaning I can't garden worth a damn. This is an easy instructional book with pictures and diagrams of different layouts of gardens. Also there are several pages of different flower/plant identification charts. i am looking forward to doing some interesting gardening!

I would highly recommend this book for the beginner through advanced. Alot of information to reference back to. The only thing I found in Rodales Perennials for Every Purpose that I like better- is the book is setup "Plants for every season". It has the contents list in order of blooming time. ie.. Early Spring, late spring early summer, etc Gardeners Bible- has alot of great pics, deals alot with bulbs, cuttings, transplanting. saving seeds, planting- more so than Rodales Perennials. Conclusion: It would be tough to decide which one I like better, I think I will have to keep them both.

I started with the Storey Books "Vegetable Gardener's Bible" and moved to this one. Really great instruction on every aspect of gardening, with excellent illustrations. It's very helpful to have lists of shade-loving plants, water-loving plants, scented plants, plants that are good in containers, etc. And there's an excellent guide showing bloom time, as well as pH charts, guides on bulb depth, compost, nutrients, etc. Really an all-around winner. Storey books have not disappointed me yet.

I’m a beginner at learning anything about gardening other than by trial and error. I’ve picked up tips but always knew they were just tiny parts of the puzzle. This book gave me all the missing pieces for my flower garden

This book was so much better than I could have ever imagined. The book is very informative. There are 372 pages, beautiful pictures and the pages are very sturdy. Now, I have to say that the book is so enjoyable that the minute I got it I started reading it. I couldn't be happier.

I was familiar with the book having previously borrowed one. Totally met my need to help me identify and select plants.

Very Good

Would have liked more information on annuals and perrenials that are more common in our area. Lovely book though.

I really like this book! Had gotten from the library, but decided to buy a copy as I'm still learning and it makes a good reference book...