The Sweet Pea Book: Graham Rice ; Principal Photographer Judy White

Rating:
Summary: A Great Guide to Sweet Peas
Review: For anyone wanting to grow sweet peas in their garden or just read up on the different types, this book is the way to go. Graham Rice creates a complete book about the history, types, fragrance and culture of the sweet pea.
The photography is stunning. Rice gathers different varieties of sweet peas and photographs them together making this book full of color and beauty.
Rice has done another great job by bringing these plants to us. It is impossible after reading this book that you won't want to try and grow sweet peas, even if you live in the tropics.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent sweet pea resource!
Review: I am a lay gardener (as opposed to an educated horticulturalist) and my favorite smelling flower is the sweet pea. I grew one variety of them for the first time this spring and I am determined to grow more. I was looking for a book to educate me about sweet peas and this was the right book!

This book is full of beautiful, colorful pictures which clearly show a flower's personality much more than a written paragraph could. I think this book is worth looking over just for the pictures alone.

In addition, it is filled with helpful and information in an easy-to-read format. I particularly enjoyed the sections on growing sweet peas from seeds, sweet peas recommended for various regions of the United States (he includes info for those in the UK too), the history of the sweet pea, and the specific catalogue (with many pictures) of individual varieties and cultivars. I was grateful that he included a rating of each sweet pea's fragrance (if he knew it). That helped me find which sweet pea I wanted to get as a strong fragrance is an important feature for me.

Kelly is definitely not a horticultural snob. He values the home gardener and encourages gardeners to dabble in crossing flowers and home breeding. He is very knowledgeable and suggests some potentially productive areas for experimenting. He also illuminates what type of breeding might be too difficult (needing a lab environment to succeed). His well-described `how to' section on breeding has inspired me to try it just for the adventure of it.

I do wish more was said throughout the book about the specific temperatures that different types of sweet peas prefer. Also, I would find it more helpful if specific temperatures were given rather than just saying `hot summer' or `cold winter'. I also think it would be more helpful to only use the USDA zones as opposed to interspersing Sunset zones with the USDA zones.

Other than that, this is a terrific book for home gardeners who just want to learn more about the sweet pea: it's history, how to grow it, and which sweet pea would be best for their Eden.