Christopher Lloyd's Garden Flowers: Perennials, Bulbs, Grasses, Ferns - Tapa dura

Imagine being taken under the wing of a master gardener. A treat to read. -- Patricia A. Taylor "Trenton Times" (11/26/2000) A unique opportunity for gardeners everywhere to benefit from a master's experience. Christopher Lloyd's characteristic enthusiasm for perennials bubbles forth from this volume. Each entry is entertaining and informative. -- David Bennett McMullin "Perennial Notes" (11/07/2001) Get this book. It will provide endless hours of pleasure. -- Jean S. Wexler "Vineyard Gazette" (03/09/2001) This is a book to own, to read piecemeal and to enjoy. -- Adele Kleine "Chicago Botanic Garden" (08/17/2001) For an appraisal of plant life, the book can't be topped. -- Suzanne Hively "Cleveland Plain Dealer" (11/26/2000) My personal favorite. The prolific Lloyd is delightfully opinionated and crusty. -- Dulcy Mahar "Oregonian" (12/06/2001) This latest book of Lloyd's is a wonderfully personal encyclopedia... -- Sarah Robertson "Eugene Register-Guard" (11/29/2000) Every entry, from Achillea to Zigadenus, is equally distinguished by Lloyd's iconoclastic and delightful words of plant wisdom. This is a one man band covering everything from "Acanthus" to "Zigadenus." -- Barney Lipscomb "Sida, Contributions to Botany" (04/26/2000) "Christopher Lloyd's Garden Flowers" should be on every gardener's bookshelf. -- Marty Figley "Michigan Observer and Eccentric" (02/22/2001) I like a book with great pictures, and this book has got it . . . An explosion of color. -- Linda Cobb "Spartanburg Herald-Journal" (12/12/2000) [Christopher Lloyd's] sumptously illustrated text shares a lifetime of trial and error. -- Rebecca Sawyer-Fay "Country Living Gardener" (02/23/2001) These chock-full, fascinating pages may leave readers in awe that someone has been able to try so many plants and absorb so much detailed information. A treat for gardeners everywhere, this is the author's lifetime study of the gardener's main materials and indispensable elements of a beautiful garden. Christopher Lloyd's new book, "Garden Flowers," demonstrates all that is best about our greatest garden plantsman. No-one else can do practical advice so pithily. The encyclopedic format of the book begins, making it easy for the gardener to look up a given plant and discover the positive and negative things Lloyd has to say about it. He has a thorough knowledge of plants, their culture and combinations with flair. The book is as much fun to read as a good novel. -- Judy Glattstein "Home Monthly" (01/27/2001) Described by Anna Pavord as 'the book I have been waiting for all my gardening life', here is yet another invaluable book from Britain's most esteemed garden writer and plantsman. One of the big reasons Lloyd is my favorite garden writer is his totally honest, opinionated, and even acidic commentary. -- Jimmy Williams "Paris (TN) Post Intelligencer" (08/13/2001) A lifetime of experience among plants has been distilled, species by species, variety by variety, into a highly distinguished abecedarium. -- Verlyn Klinkenborg "New York Times Book Review" (12/03/2000) The essence of this famous gardener's lifetime of experience - a monumental and lively report of everything he has learned, thought, seen tried, liked or regretted about a great range of perennial plants. Always informative and always entertaining (a rare quality for a reference book).... It is a volume that belongs in every gardening collection. -- Rachael Green "American Reference Books Annual" (04/24/2001) The photos are "hot stuff" in terms of the color combinations and interesting plants . . . Quite obviously this book is great reading, and wil certainly encourage you to be daring. -- Ann Milovsoroff "Pappus" (06/22/2001) A much loved English garden writer with an eye for details, Lloyd spills the stored-up beans with lavish descriptions of his favorite plants and their growing tips. -- Marianne Binetti "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" (11/23/2000) Having criticized some British imports, I'll now make amends and rave about "Christopher Lloyd's Garden Flowers" for its beauty, explicit cultural information and contrarian wit. -- Pamela Lord "Gardener for the Prairies" (12/06/2001) One of the first great plant books of the twenty-first century: an engaging personal survey of the perennial world . . . Thoroughly delightful reading for garden lovers anywhere. -- Marge Howard-Jones "Pacific Horticulture" (01/25/2001) At 384 pages, this hefty book, with its superb photos to inspire you, sage advice to educate you, and sardonic humor to enertain you, would be great for winter perusal and an equally good choice as a gift for your favorite gardening friend. No dedicated gardener would want to give up reading the great British garden writers like Christopher Lloyd, who has condensed a lifetime of sometimes rude and always passionate opinions into a wonderful new book. -- Carol Stocker "Boston Globe" (12/14/2000) Want help picking a terrific plant for your garden? You'll find it in this exciting book, which summarizes gardening maestro Christopher Lloyd's lifetime of experimentation and observation at his famed English estate. -- Kristine Moe "Seattle Times" (09/03/2000) Without wasting words, he uses his refreshing dry humor to sum up his experience with each genus. The book's design is crisp and clean. The photographs ar generous and offer lovely glimpses into the master gardener's garden. -- Linda Coyner "Senior Women Web" (09/17/2003) [This] is the book to own. It is that rarest of beasts - a reference book with a human voice . . . to read through again and again, both for entertainment as well as to learn more than you can imagine coming from one person's brain. -- Valerie Easton "Horticulture" (05/13/2001) It is hard to imagine any gardener anywhere using and re-using this book without pleasure, excitement, instruction, amusement, and the frequent reaction: "I must grow this . . . we really must get that." It is surely impossible to read it without looking at the garden with new eyes and new ideas. There are garden books that are practical, and there are garden books that look good on your coffee table. And then there are garden books that you read in bed even if you don't have a garden. Such are the books of the very English, very opinionated and very snobbish Christopher Lloyd. -- Alex Waterhouse-Hayward "Western Living" (04/06/2001) In telling us what they know [Christopher] Lloyd and [Pamela] Harper cannot help also telling us what they see and what they think. This not only makes their accounts entertaining, but also reveals the inner workings of the gardener's mind, qualities that transcend the local, climatic vagaries of their respective gardens. -- Adrian Higgins "Washington Post" (09/14/2000)

Christopher Lloyd knows perennials as well as anyone else alive. Now available in paperback, this book represents the fruit of Lloyd's lifetime study of perennials. Genus by genus, he sets down everything he has learned, thought, seen, tried, liked, or regretted about them, individually or in combination. He is formidably knowledgeable, iconoclastic, opinionated, and always entertaining. Here, meticulously recorded, are his expert opinions about numerous varieties of flowering garden plants, from Acanthus to Zigadenus, accompanied by spectacular photographs from Jonathan Buckley and others. Any gardener will find themselves opening this book time and again with pleasure and the frequent thought, "I MUST grow this one, too."