BOOK REVIEWS

Trees & Shrubs
for Flowers

Glyn Church
Photographs by Pat Greenfield
David Bateman
$NZ49.95

THIS is the third instalment in the new Bateman's Woody Plant series, and follows Trees and Shrubs for Foliage and Trees and Shrubs for Fragrance.

Written by Taranaki horticulturist Glyn Church, who gained a Master of Horticulture at the Chelsea Physic Garden in central London before setting up Woodleigh Nursery just out of New Plymouth, Trees and Shrubs for Flowers is an authoritative and user-friendly guide to tree selection.

More than 100 genera are featured in detail, with helpful cultivation requirements, pest and disease control pointers, height and width characteristics and intriguing explanations for each plant's scientific name. For example, our native pohutukawa, Metrosideros excelsa, comes from Metro, meaning heartwood, and sideros, or iron - a reference to its hard and heavy timber. Excelsa simply means beautiful - and in full flower, no one could argue with that description!

Organised in botanical alphabetical order, this is a great source of inspiration if you want a flowering tree, but you're not sure which type you want. However, it would have been improved by the inclusion of specific categories - spring flowering trees, for example, or ideal flowering trees for small gardens - for easier reference.

It's a minor grumble, mind you, because unlike many similar reference books, each tree or shrub listed is accompanied by large, clear photographs, so you can simply flick through the pages to pick your favourites.

Weekend Gardener, Issue 107, October 3-16, 2002, Page 28

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH