"A brilliantly readable account of double flowers, exploring everything from their many varieties to their biological development, their long history in our gardens and the powerful emotional responses they elicit. This supremely researched book will leave you appreciating double flowers as never before." - Stephen Blackmore, Queen's Botanist and former Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh With charms extending from the romantic allure of double roses and the attention-grabbing flamboyance of double tulips to the exquisite perfection of tiny double primroses, double flowers are among the most loved of our garden plants. Double Flowers is the first popular handbook to explore them in depth. Double flowers are simply flowers with a greater than normal number of petals or petal-like structures. They occur spontaneously in the wild and can also be selected and bred. This superbly illustrated guide - begun by bestselling garden writer Nicola Ferguson before her death in 2007, and completed by Charles Quest-Ritson - celebrates some of the many thousands of beautiful double flowers produced throughout history. The book examines how doubles have arisen; how they are constructed; how and where they will flourish; their particular appeal and how best to place them in the garden; and the advantages and disadvantages of such flowers - for gardeners, for flower-arrangers and for wildlife.

Tuberous begonias are sensational flowers--their abundant blooms capture everyone's heart and eye. This authoritative guide introduces the best varieties and celebrates the great range of colors grown. Written by Jack Larter, who has devoted many years of love and toil to the plants, it covers everything that both novice and veteran need to know to grow blooms for the home, garden, and show bench.

This is an illustrated guide to varieties, cultivation and care, with step-by-step instructions and over 150 beautiful photographs. It features full photographic directory of over 40 varieties, including cluster-flowered roses, miniature roses, ground-cover roses, large-flowered roses and rugosa roses. For each variety, full botanical information is provided on history, growth, hue, height, spread and suitability. It offers step-by-step guidance on planting, propagation and pruning, and how to deal with common pests and diseases. It includes instructions on using roses for hedging and ground cover, and combining them with other plants. It is a highly accessible guide to some of the world's best-loved plants, celebrating their diversity and beauty. It offers everything you need to know at a glance in one handy and superbly illustrated practical guide. The rose is the quintessential flower of the summer, and apart from the beauty of the flowers, many modern varieties have the twin advantages of a long flowering season and disease resistance. With hues ranging from delicate pastels to glowing reds, yellows and oranges, the range has never been wider, encompassing roses for growing en masse or in conjunction with other plants, as hedges, ground cover or in containers. This beautiful book explains how to use modern roses to their best advantage, and features a directory of over 40 varieties. There are practical instructions for planting, propagating and pruning roses, ensuring a magnificent display in all types of garden.

Fuchsias - The New Cultivars follows George Bartlett's first volume, Fuchsias - A Colour Guide, profiling another 1500 newly created cultivars with over 500 colour photographs. Starting with practical advice from an expert on how to care for this beautiful plant , it then updates the fuchsia enthusiast and specialist with entries on the very latest cultivars.

This vividly written and lavishly illustrated book challenges many cherished beliefs about the rose. It looks set to establish itself as the definitive history of the Queen of Flowers. Ever since Sappho planted roses at the shrine of Aphrodite, no flower has captured the imagination in quite the same way. Wherever it has grown, human beings have projected on to it their dreams and aspirations. Celebrated as a sacred symbol and as a token of womanhood, the rose unites Venus with the Virgin Mary, the blood of Christ with the sweat of Muhammad, the sacred and the profane, life and death, the white rose of chastity and the red rose of consummation. In The Rose, the acclaimed horticultural historian Jennifer Potter shows what, exactly, gives this most fragrant flower its potency in societies around the world. Beginning her story in the Greek and Roman empires, she travels across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas to unravel its evolution from a simple briar of the northern hemisphere to the height of cultivated perfection found in rose gardens today. Whether laying bare the flower's long association with sexuality and secret societies, questioning the Crusaders' role in bringing roses back from the Holy Land, or hunting for its elusive blooms in the gardens of the Empress Josephine at Malmaison, Jennifer Potter reveals why this flower, above all others, has provoked such fascination.

Everyone loves 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. In the same format as the very successful The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, 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 colour 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 encyclopaedia of more than 400 species includes detailed descriptions of each plant - garden uses, susceptibility to pests and diseases, propagation methods, and more.

Over 500 annuals suitable to MN & WI climate. How & when to start your plants. Tips on planting, growing, recommended varities, problems & pests.