| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The New Exotic Garden for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Will Giles reckons that British gardeners are ready to abandon the restrained good taste, subtle border plantings and generally muted palette of the traditional garden in favour of tropical boldness, hot colours and sculptural forms. He may well be right. The various plantings he discusses and illustrates in The New Exotic Garden are extravagant indeed. Huge banana trees, bamboos of all sizes and colours, ferns, gingers, astonishing foliage plants, shrubs like the fabulous Brugmansia, are mingled with familiar exotics like begonias, hostas, clematis and dahlias, made unfamiliar again by their context. This is a very exciting approach to garden-building; and if your tastes lie in the direction of this kind of febrile self-expression, The New Exotic Garden is highly recommended. It includes a directory of exotic plants and practical advice on their cultivation. No-one could pretend, however, that these are low-maintenance plants. Many have to be protected from frost: there are illustrations of the fairly awe-inspiring precautions required to ensure the survival of a mature banana plant (build a kind of wooden cage out of pallets around it and stuff it with straw), and the more manageable plants may need to be transferred to a greenhouse for the winter. All of this means that a full-blown exotic garden is not to be undertaken lightly. But the rewards, as Will Giles triumphantly demonstrates in the many beautiful shots of his own Norwich garden among the illustrations, can be immense. --Robin Davidson
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
Tropical plantings are enjoying a renaissance with their instant, easy impact on gardens small and large. Originating in Victorian times when large-scale 'bedding' was in vogue, temporary plantings lost their appeal during the war years and it is only recently, thanks to the daring of gardeners such as Christopher Lloyd, that they have found their place in the popularity stakes again and become more readily available. This is a long overdue book from Will Giles whose garden has often been shown on television and written about in the horticultural press. A small town garden in the heart of Norwich, he has spent the last twenty years developing it, learning from it and finding that many so-called tropical plants are actually hardier than at first thought. His immense knowledge, shared so freely in this attractively produced book, is written in an entertainingly informative manner making this a pleasure to dip into time after time. Covering lush, forest-like plantings, Mediterranean style plantings and desert-scapes, he demonstrates the ease with which houseplants find themselves at home in the open air, albeit for a temporary break. Marantas, amaranthus and alocasias happily mix with bananas, palms, agaves and yuccas. The imposing ginger lilies with their autumnal sweetly-scented flowers and colourful cannas add colour at a higher level whilst hardy perennials such as euphorbias and hemerocallis add exoticism in their own quiet way. Succulents and cacti look happily at home too, sitting in pots on steps or planted in a sunny spot to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. This is a fascinating insight into what can now be grown in this country thanks to global-warming. Including details on propagation, planting and winter-care, this is an indispensable guide to these new garden plants whose popularity will hopefully last for a long time to come. - Lucy Watson
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Large colourful pictures and informative text entice you into wanting to create your own corner of Eden. Mediterranean or jungle it's all here. There are plenty of ideas and inspirations within everbody's reach and pocket. Useful tips on propagating and protecting plants as well as a small directory of exotic plants.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Great book for getting started in tropical gardening, with gorgeous photos.
However, what we need is a book for UK gardeners listing tropical looking plants that do not need protection, perhaps for the lazy gardener and this book does not go into this in any great depth.
But it is one of the best available for the UK gardener and well worth getting.
However, what we need is a book for UK gardeners listing tropical looking plants that do not need protection, perhaps for the lazy gardener and this book does not go into this in any great depth.
But it is one of the best available for the UK gardener and well worth getting.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Being new to the world of exotic gardeing this book was at first a great inspiration- showing just what can be achieved in the English Climate.
Once we got going ourselves I have found I keep coming back to this book - for the useful information it has - espcially the section in the back on Cultivating exotic plants. Lovely clear coloured drawings make it easy to follow.
Theres also a great directory of exotic plants - that is useful for quick reference.
I've had this book for 6 months now - and still manage to sit down and find something interesting in it every week.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great photos, little substance
The images are inspirational but the info is brief. It gives the feel it is what it is, a cut down cheap version of the full volume work by the same author. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mr. Kevin Ward
An excellent book
An excellent book that any tropical plant grower would get great value from. I got two copies for friends as Xmas presents and they were also very impressed.
Published 17 months ago by Mr. S. J. Morris
The new exotic garden
Author appears to have a lack of depth to his style of gardening lacks base knowledge.
Published on 16 Mar 2010 by Mrs. Jacqueline Hollinshead
better off with the other Will Giles book
This book is split into 2 halves. The first has slightly waffly text mixed with gorgeous photos, describing the various ways of using exotic plants to create a gorgeous garden. Read more
Published on 17 Feb 2008 by downkiddie
Manages to be both a coffee table book and a practical guide
This is a beautiful book - the kind you pick up on impulse in a book shop because the cover and illustrations look so good. Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2001
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
