Howard Garrett's Plants for Texas

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for the Texas Gardener!!
Review: He lists almost all the plants that can grow in Texas and ones that don't-- The best part are the color photos of each plant along with details on mature height, distinguishing attributes and cultural requirements for each. An excellent reference for the Texas do it yourself home landscaper. His info on trees was invaluable to me

Rating:
Summary: The Source
Review: I am new to Texas gardening, and I am more familiar with the Northwest, where we have the wonderful Sunset books to help us with our planting advice. Garrett's Plants for Texas comes close to the excellent format of those Sunset books that I have depended on for years. It covers nearly every plant I have researched for my difficult caliche-filled yard, and the advice is right on. It sometimes takes a few page jumps to find the information, as I am redirected from the common name to the more obscure Latin, but I eventually find the plant. At points, he seems a little over-the-top with organic gardening, and a few newer plants seem to be only briefly covered. The scant information on palms is disappointing. Still, I find myself using this book nearly every week. I recommend it. With this and Scott Ogden's Gardening Success With Difficult Soils: Limestone, Alkaline Clay, and Caliche, I have all my Austin gardening needs covered.

Rating:
Summary: Just What I Wanted!
Review: My significant other lives in Houston, and I, a Californian by birth, have lived in Philadelphia most of my life. An avid gardener at home here in PA, I felt uncharacteristically unsure about tackling the long-neglected flower beds in Houston.

Then I read the reviews for Howard Garrett's charming and fabulous "Plants for Texas," and ordered it immediately. It arrived yesterday and I could not put it down until I had read it cover to cover.

Every single question I have had is answered in this book in a format so clear, so concise, and so heartwarming to any gardener, that I found I was smiling ear to ear. From the beginning pages, where Garrett presents his no-nonsense advice on design, maintenance, and care of everything from trees to turf grasses to annuals, to his staunch anti-chemical point of view (YES!), I gained a wealth of information.

By the time I got to the alphabetical pages with the full-color pictures of everything a Texas gardener could ever want to plant, I was thoroughly and totally delighted. Already I have made a rudimentary list (way too ambitious, of course). Already, I have page after page bookmarked and highlighted. Already, I have planted perfect gardens in my mind's eye.

Perhaps my favorite part of the entire book is the page on hackberry (celtis), which nastily eats up a major portion of my friend's flower beds, and which I secretly, and guiltily, hate. Garrett's take: "Do not plant and cut down the ones that sprout up!" Gotta love a man who shares my views on hackberry. I love this book. Plain and simple. I recommend it to anybody who gardens, or who plans to garden, in the Great State of Texas!