Re: CULT: New Iris Book

Readers of the Karen Glasgow book should be aware that it is definitely
aimed at the New Zealand gardener and that New Zealand, blessed in so many
other ways, evidently has no iris pests at all!  But the pictures are very
nice, making up about half of the 100-page book.  Refreshingly,many of them
are of irises in a garden context, not just "mug shots."

Don't know about Geoff Stebbings, but the other books in the series (I
bought two of them while in England last year) are very nice handbooks and
highly suitable for beginners.  But you must remember that they are written
for a British audience and do not address American conditions.

This is a constant caution with Timber Press and some other
publishers/distributers of garden books.  They can much more cheaply and
easily reprint or distribute British and European books that have already
been written and published at home, rather than pay American authors to
write books that would be specifically aimed at American gardeners.  And
yet, to judge from the book tables at Barnes and Noble, Brentano's, and
Books-a-Million, there is an almost endless market for books on any and all
aspects of gardening.  For instance, Timber Press also lists a new book by
George Schenck on 'Moss Gardening.'  This sounds like an esoteric subject,
and probably it is, but any book by George Schenck is worth buying and
reading.  His book on shade gardening is my bible!

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@tiger.hsc.edu>
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index