Plants And Landscapes For Summer-dry Climates Of The San Francisco Bay Region | 
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Customer Reviews:
• Excellent Graphics 09 September, 2008
This book is a fabulous tool for California gardeners. The beautiful photographs are the primary feature, giving you an instant impression of the plants. The plants are listed by botanical name so it's also a good tool to quiz yourself on the botanical names.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1N9P887D0A9FK
• Worth The Full Price 03 March, 2008
This book is as useful as it is beautiful.
The photographs are inspiring, but the sheer volume of detailed text is terrific. It's like having an encyclopedia and coffee table book, all in one. Every January I pull it off the shelf to flip through the pages and dream of spring.
I find it to be less commercial than Sunset Garden--less interested in design and trend, more in water-saving and ecology--but FYI, there is a lot of overlap. While if I could only have one book for California gardening, it would be Sunset's, this one is much more fun and inspiring.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2RF728ME1MT3Z
• Beautifully Photographed, Carefully Researched 05 August, 2008
An indispensable guide for summer dry gardeners. Carefully researched and presented. Stunning photography by one of America's greatest garden photographers.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1QVFR99KXV69Q
• Good Book Overall 02 March, 2008
If I had the option I would be giving this book 4 1/2 stars instead of just 4- but there are a few minor problems that kept me from giving it a 5. The good points of the book other people have covered well- it has beautiful photographs and it has very good explanations of the bay area climate and why it presents unique gardening challenges and offers aesthetically pleasing and environmentally responsible ways of responding to those natural conditions and creating gardens that integrate well into the ecosystems around them.
Another interesting thing about the book is that incorporates ideas from many different places- it was put out not by one author but by a municipal district- a fascinating idea I hope is emulated elsewhere. However while there is a positive that it has so much input from many different sources and gardening philosophies, it suffers a little bit from the too many cooks syndrome. It doesn't feature native plants exclusively, but it does feature some of them, trying to kind of incorporate the native approach with more conventional gardening. The problem is that for anyone who is interested in knowing which plants are native to California the information is presented in a very confusing fashion. A little icon of the state appears next to the general group of plants (like carex) if ONE of them listed below is native. Or more. You have to read about each entry to try and figure out which belong to which. In some cases you will figure out which one is not native by a note saying 'Native to New Zealand' in one subentry, like C. buchananii. In others, like manzanita, no information on where each comes from is given, which may be confusing to someone who is not familiar with native plants, and will know that all are native.
There were also two errors I caught in the first reading- yarrow is not marked with a California symbol showing that there are native species in the state. Then there are sub-entries for Island Pink and common yarrow which don't state where they are from, so someone without prior knowledge of native plants wouldn't be able to figure that out from the rest of the text. In fact, the book is very inconsistent in stating where a plant is from. I think the final version of the book was not edited by someone familiar with native plants or they would have caught that and possibly found a clearer way of showing if a plant was native, such as putting a symbol next to the for entry Berkley sedge instead of up top with general heading of carex.
So in short I would fully recommend this book to anyone who is solely interested in water-wise gardening in California and finding plants that are adapted to summer dry climates, but if you are a beginner with an interest in native plants with a few non-natives for accents, you will need another more specific book to supplement this one, as I think one would be a bit confusing. It is still a remarkable achievement and I don't mean to sound negative because I would still recommend this book- but I thought it was something potential readers should be aware of, even though it is perhaps a nit-picky thing. I think the editors bit off a fairly big chunk with this one, and overall did very well. Hopefully in future editions, these minor problems will be resolved.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1EY479C44NX4F
• A Great Garden Guide For California! 04 October, 2008
This is one of the most helpful books I have ever purchased as a guide to what plants work best in the Mediterranean climate of many parts California. Illustrated with hundreds of color photos so that you can see what the plants look like. It also notes water requirements of each plant - I discovered I was watering plants that don't really want or need summer water.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3KZWX311ZB55Y
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