Complete Garden: Interactive 2,500 Plant Finder and Pruning Guide (PC)

This interactive 'Plant Selector, plant care and pruning guide' CD-ROM is a great resource, packed with useful information about plants. British made and visually strong, this plant finder CD-ROM is a powerful search tool and a pleasure to use regardless of plant knowledge or computing skills. The gardening software is in effect a large database in to which you can enter your search requirements such as flowering time or colour, month of interest, or your soil conditions, sun/shade, dry or moist. Viewing a selection of plants is speedily and effortless, and a boon to both amateur gardener and professional designer. At its heart is a database of 2,500 plants. There's no scrimping on supporting images either, as there are more than 7,000 stunning photographs to show the plants flowers, leaves, shape, size, and where relevant bark, berries and seasonal changes. The icon friendly gardening software allows you to manage your plant collection - once compiled the plant list is linked to the calendar function and show you which plants you have of interest in any month and also tell you which your plants should be pruned. The illustrated pruning advice informs you how. This makes the CD-ROM a perfect plant care tool for planning a garden with all year colour interest. Find plants to attract wildlife, grasses to add texture and movement, plants to climb wall, plants for dry shady places, acid or alkaline lovers, autumn colour and berries, the multi choice seems endless. Head to the garden style and you are offered a choice of interactive designs, such as cottage or formal gardens. Position the mouse over the garden pictures and click on any of the plants to reveal details of their attributes. You will also find information on pests, diseases and weeds, and many garden articles. The CD has an extensive list of plants, with 120 alone being listed as of interest to butterflies. Quick and easy to use, it is as accessible as a book but offers so much more. The information on individual plants is superb, sometimes with four different illustrations and interesting information such as how the species' scientific name was derived and, if appropriate, culinary and medical uses. Be inspired by the beautiful illustrations and the articles on specialist topics from experts in their field, including Jenny Steel writing about butterflies and wildlife in general. If you have children, poisonous plants can be excluded from your search or you can select wildlife-friendly plants. You can find out how to care for or prune every plant, which pests it maybe susceptible to, when it flowers or fruits and much more. Click on a word to reveal its horticultural terminology: Complete Gardens can be used as a plant finder, helping you via the associated website, to find a nursery or garden centre that stocks any plant that interests you. Complete Gardens will continue to grow and be updated, and additional CD's are being produced. Each of these will contain information about a further 500 plants. More specialist CDs will also be produced over time with information on wildflowers, grasses, roses, or clematis. For anyone with a computer, this can build up into a huge reference library of plants and gardening. This CD makes garden research and planning fast and fun and puts plant knowledge at your fingertips, saving hours of searching, providing plant care advice for each plant so you know what to do to have healthy plants that will thrive and look their best. This interactive gardening CD-ROM can help you add value to your property by creating an attractive garden and save you wasting money by selecting out unsuitable plants. When it comes to buying new plants, it's easy to get a little nervous - particularly if you want to try something different. That's where the Complete gardens CD-ROM comes in. Full of plants that are ideal for the UK climate, this helpful garden planner is a perfect search tool.