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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
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