Whether it stands as a single feature in a mixed border, climbs a trellis, forms a hedge, or spills out of a pot, the shrub offers beauty, diversity, privacy, and shelter; moreover, there's an ideal shrub for every season and every kind of soil and climate. So, faced with this dazzling variety, how does a gardener choose? Drawing on a lifetime's experience as a gardener, and mingling expert advise with his trademark enthusiasm, John Cushnie will help you choose the perfect shrub. With a beautifully illustrated directory featuring 175 entries, Cushnie guides you through choosing, planting, and caring for shrubs, offering his personal favorites for every situation. Whether you're looking for shape or shelter, scent, glorious autumn color, bright summer blooms, or evergreens for year-round interest, "Shrubs for the Garden" has the plant for you. Landscape designer and gardening editor John Cushnie is the author of "Ground Cover, How to Garden, " and "Trees for the Yard and Garden."

This is a wonderful collection of the much loved John Cushnie's best writing for the "Daily Telegraph"'s "Gardening" supplement. It is journalism at its best, in which he achieved the perfect balance of horticulture and humour, good sense and fun. Cushnie was the master of the one liner, and pulls his readers into his articles with vigorous, fast-moving prose that is a joy to read. More than any other gardening writer today, Cushnie brings his subject alive - whether the finer points of garden design, the intricacies of planting up a rock garden, or the romance of growing climbers up a tree. He was highly opinionated, often contrary, always off-beat, but dispensed sound horticultural tips and advice with warmth and humour. When asked by Chris Evans on BBC Radio 2 to comment on hedges, John Cushnie answered: 'I love yew'. This mischievous response was typical of Cushnie - funny, quick witted and irreverent - and resulted in Evans nicknaming him 'The Hedge Man'.