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100 Best New Zealand Native Plants for Gardens
Fiona Eadie (Random House NZ, 2001)
New Zealand has a unique flora, and this Godwit New Zealand Gardening Guide, seeks to introduce us to them. Imposing specimen trees, colourful and versatile shrubs and climbers, luscious ferns and more.
This book is a blessing. An affordable, knowledgeable guide to a wide range of trees, shrubs, herbaceous, grasses, ferns and climbers that are available and will add to any garden. The author writes with first hand knowledge of the plants and the photographs are tempting and helpful. The summary boxes on each plant are a clever quick guide that saves time if you take the book to the nursery with you - if you can bear to risk getting such a lovely book dirty and dog-eared.
As a gardener on the chilly Canterbury plains I would take issue with some of the hardiness ratings- Pittosporum eugenioides and Pseudopanax lateus, for example, can be devastated in a heavy frost, even in three or four years after planting. Knowing your local conditions is important, unless you want to kill off all your new plantings!
This useful book, crammed full of and information, will make a great reference work for many gardeners, full of excellent New Zealand native plants that should be more widely grown. It is all too easy to extend your wish list of plants simply by spending an evening with this book!
(Recommended Retail $39.95). | |
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