Tropical Ornamentals : A Guide

Rating:
Summary: Not for the novice gardener
Review: For the serious tropical gardener, this is one book you must not be without.

The "Organization Of Information" section of this book I found to be very boring. I did however, immensely enjoy the rest of the book and would highly suggest it to anyone who grows a large majority of tropical plants.

Some of the plants mentioned in the book such as Albizia Lebbeck, I had been unable to find any information on previously. I was quite surprised at the large number of plants mentioned that were not common. There were also some plants they touched on that I was completely unfamiliar with. I thought this was great!

There are color photographs with each plant description and sometimes there is more than one photo showing various varieties of the plant. This is a real plus if you grow most everything from seeds or cuttings and have never seen these plants. There is a total of 458 photographs.

Although each plant only receives a small section, the descriptions do include information such as flowers or fruit, propagation, leaves and plant type. It also gives the common name of the plant and the index allows you to reference each plant by scientific name or common name.

Overall, I found it a highly useful book that will be one of the most used books I have. That's a very high compliment!

The only thing that might have been made it better was to move the explanation section to the back!

I cannot emphasize enough that this is one book you must have on your reference shelf!

Rating:
Summary: Tropical Ornamentals A Guide
Review: For the serious tropical gardener, this is one book you must not be without.

The "Organization Of Information" section of this book I found to be very boring. I did however, immensely enjoy the rest of the book and would highly suggest it to anyone who grows a large majority of tropical plants.

Some of the plants mentioned in the book such as Albizia Lebbeck, I had been unable to find any information on previously. I was quite surprised at the large number of plants mentioned that were not common. There were also some plants they touched on that I was completely unfamiliar with. I thought this was great!

There are color photographs with each plant description and sometimes there is more than one photo showing various varieties of the plant. This is a real plus if you grow most everything from seeds or cuttings and have never seen these plants. There is a total of 458 photographs.

Although each plant only receives a small section, the descriptions do include information such as flowers or fruit, propagation, leaves and plant type. It also gives the common name of the plant and the index allows you to reference each plant by scientific name or common name.

Overall, I found it a highly useful book that will be one of the most used books I have. That's a very high compliment!

The only thing that might have been made it better was to move the explanation section to the back!

I cannot emphasize enough that this is one book you must have on your reference shelf!

Rating:
Summary: Not for the novice gardener
Review: I was very disappointed with the purchase of this book. Living on a tropical island I am surrounded by most, if not all of the plants in this guide. I was looking for a book to help me identify plants in my surroundings that I see on a day to day basis. While there are colour photographs with each plant description, it was difficult to recognise plants because the photos tended to focus mainly on the flowering part of the plant. This is especially frustrating when one wants to identify a tree or shrub.

The Poinciana, (here it is called Flamboyant) is an unmistakeable tree with flame red floweres and feathery leaves. The photo shows a close detail on the tree's flowers and leaves. I have never actually inspected the floweres of this tree up close, having only seen it's distinctive shape and of course flame red colour in parks and along roadways. Now that I have seen them in this book, I notice that they closely resemble those of a shrub called Barbados Pride! This could lead to confusion with someone who is totally unfamiliar with either plant!

The tree would be easier recognized if a picture of the tree itself was included. There is of course a magnificent photo of a Flamboyant on the back cover but I use this as only an example. No other tree or shrub is featured this way.

In short this book is completely useless to me in identifying plants. Everything looks familiar but I'm left with the feeling that I'm sure I've seen that plant somewhere but I don't know what it is:-(

Rating:
Summary: A "must read" for tropical plant growers
Review: This book should be a "must read" for anyone wanting to grow tropical plants.

This was the most comprehensive book about the tropical plants that I have read. It truly covered most of the tropicals that I wanted to look up. Most impressive.Very systematic. Had good information on flowering periods and propagation techniques. More details on growing these plants could enhance this book even more. All in all a very good addition to my tropical plants collection.

Rating:
Summary: A "must read" for tropical plant growers
Review: This book should be a "must read" for anyone wanting to grow tropical plants.

This was the most comprehensive book about the tropical plants that I have read. It truly covered most of the tropicals that I wanted to look up. Most impressive.Very systematic. Had good information on flowering periods and propagation techniques. More details on growing these plants could enhance this book even more. All in all a very good addition to my tropical plants collection.

Rating:
Summary: Book should be on the shelf of all who love tropical plants
Review: Wonderful reference book. Great photos - 400 plus - and lots of pertinent info. We need more books like this pertaining to tropical gardening. On nearly every page there is a photograph with information about the genus and species to aid in identifying these plants.

There are a few other books out there on this subject, and I probably have most of them, but Tropical Ornamentals seemed like manna from heaven ... Add this book to your gardening library.