They make great gifts, too. Traditional English cottage gardens had about the same amount of garden space as do modern homes in many urban centers. My blind husky Moon Pie thanks you for considering buying this book, because he is sick of me chopping savagely at the weeds in the lavender hedge muttering how the mulcherati control horticultural publishing. I don't believe there's anything else like it out there. It has evolved through common sense, combines need with enjoyment and is entirely unpretentious.
Gardeners love plants, more than water features, or hummingbirds, or silly statues.
Here Armitage presents enough perennials to satisfy any gardener, no matter how insatiable their appetite for plants. Within these 324 jam-packed and colorful pages one will find classic favorites such as dahlias, irises, and phlox, as well as plants like Aruncus Southern White that are so new their names haven't been finalized yet. Encyclopedic in format, each genus listing includes several species and cultivars along with Armitages best photos. He is chatty, opinionated, and obviously a gardener to the core. And if a comprehensive, highly illustrated color encyclopedia is not enough to satisfy the gardeners needs, Armitage has compiled a series of lists of Selected Plants for Specific Characteristics or Purposes.