Re: Iris photos, among others



Marte wrote:

My husband & I are both addicted to reading so I'm in & out of the 
library a lot. I nearly always bring home at least one gardening book to 
confound myself with & this time it was the 2-volume Random House Book 
of Perennials, 1991, text & photos by Roger Phillips & Martyn Rix, both 
of the UK. These books have their strengths & weaknesses but the reason 
I'm mentioning them is the large section in Volume I on irises of many, 
many kinds -- I had never heard of a *lot* of the species irises they 
cover! Fascinating, to this person at least. 


Marte,
One of the strengths of this 2-volume set is that the authors give origins of
the perennial described.  With this information you can determine what
growing conditions a plant wants.

There are photographs of many species forms of today's perennials, often in
their native location.  This is perhaps not as useful to the shopper for
garden perennials
as one of larger American publications.

There is information on plants common in UK and European gardens which are
only now arriving in our catalogs.  This set is not intended as a practical
garden guide but as an iformation source and it is absolutely the best
photographic guide on it's subject in the popular garden press.

I bought the Rix-Phillips books when first published and find I use them
constantly.
They have, among many collaborations, two books on roses that are excellent.
 The series of essays in "The Three-Thousand Mile Garden" is great garden
reading.  It is the tale of one summer's experiences between Phillips and a
woman in Maine.  Their letters are printed chronologically. The Maine garden
is of course a zone 4 and the English garden a square in London.

Claire Peplowski
East Nassau, NY - zone 4 - where it has rained three times in four days and
we cannot believe our good fortune.
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