The Flower Gardener's Bible: Time-Tested Techniques, Creative Designs, and Perfect Plants for Colorful Gardens

Americans love flowers. We grow them with a passion and crave helpful advice on nurturing them in our gardens. A great, friendly, indispensable book, THE FLOWER GARDENER'S BIBLE is written with wit and authority by Lewis and Nancy Hill, who share both their joy in growing flowers and more than 75 years of combined experience.

This new primer is both painstakingly thorough and stunningly photographed. It covers every facet of growing perennials, annuals, bulbs, wildflowers, small trees, vines, and shrubs for season-long color and beauty. It is organized in three sections, and the first focuses on the basics - choosing the right varieties for your zone and type of garden, and planning and planting for maximum impact. The second section presents plans for 25 distinctively themed gardens. And finally, a photographic encyclopedia of more than 400 species includes detailed descriptions of each plant - garden uses, susceptibility to pests and diseases, propagation methods, and more. THE FLOWER GARDENER'S BIBLE is illustrated throughout with more than 500 full-color photographs that are joyously informal, and charming in their simplicity. Dozens of charts group plants by bloom time, height, color, affinity to shade, specific soil and sun needs, appeal to birds and butterflies, and more. THE FLOWER GARDENER'S BIBLE takes every reader - at any level of interest and expertise - and offers the one thing guaranteed to increase his or her pleasure in flower gardening - knowledge.

Publishers Weekly

The Hills recount a visit to a retired farm couple's garden where "flowers were planted in neat cultivated rows, just like their vegetables." Comprehensive formulas for vegetable gardening work, as did the Hills' The Vegetable Gardener's Bible (which has 135,000 in print), but the flower garden is perhaps too broad a subject for similar treatment. The Hills are skilled instructors in basic techniques-a strength they use well in Part I. Easy-to-read text, a welcoming magazine-like layout and step-by-step photographic guides provide a solid foundation in flower garden fundamentals. Part II, "A Gallery of Gardens," is less helpful, with watercolors accompanying descriptions and plant lists for everything from a garden path to a rose garden. By trying to serve all needs and tastes, this section sometimes overloads rather than whets the imagination. In Part III, the Hills present "species-by-species information" on 261 perennials, annuals, bulbs, wildflowers, shrubs, vines and grasses. While overall the result is sometimes uneven, the handsome color photographs will invite browsing and offer gardeners a good, homey foundation. (Mar.)

Lewis Hill has been a nurseryman for more than 55 years. He is the author of 15 books (half written in collaboration with his wife, Nancy Hill) that total more than 600,000 copies in print. Lewis's Secrets of Plant Propagation was selected by American Horticultural Society as one of its choices for the "75 Great Garden Books." The Hills live in Greensboro, Vermont, where Lewis's family has been living and farming for 200 years.

Award-winning photographer Joseph Desciose has been the contributing photographer for publications and promotional materials for both the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the New York Botanical Garden, where he also lectures frequently. His work has appeared in books and numerous magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Country Living Gardener, House & Garden, and Country Home.