I've been gardening for a long time and recently joined the Hardy Plant Society and am a volunteer in their seed exchange. I'm an intermediate level gardener and I've got enough basic books on the subject. When I first got this book I was a little disappointed, it seemed like a slim volume and each chapter focused on only one flower, also they used different crops of the same photo/garden within a page or two of each other. Then I started reading it! The text of each article has the character of the gardener writing it. But what I really like are the sidebars with great tidbits on growing cyclamen from seed, sections on trilliums,epimediums and cypripedium (hardy lady slipper orchids), and phlox divaricata as well as other plants I want to learn about like mountain laurel, bloodroot, cimicifuga, japanese anemones for late summer, and more. The focus on propagating was just what I needed.