BOOK REVIEWS

Container Gardening

Paul Williams
Dorling Kindersley
Distributed by Penguin
$NZ65.00

THERE'S certainly no shortage of words on container gardening. Container books are a growth industry, spurred by the shrinking of garden space and the vogue for outdoor living.

Englishman Paul Williams, head gardener at a large garden in the Cotswolds, brings a touch of authenticity to the genre; the container plants lavishly illustrated here were grown and tended by the author himself and he's refreshingly candid about his likes, dislikes and even failures.

While container design and grouping are given more than a passing nod, the emphasis of this book is on the gardening aspect. Williams is billed as a passionate plantsman and his enthusiasm and his eye for plant combinations, his mixing and matching of texture and colour, are inspirational. In the second chapter Williams has put together 44 container portraits, each with a theme, testimony to his knowledge and skill.

There's sound advice on plant care; the tips on planting, maintenance, repotting and so on are well laid out with clear step-by-step illustrations. An illustrated A-Z of easy-to-grow container plants contains more than 300 species. The book isn't cheap but if you're starting out or rekindling an interest in container gardening it's all the words you need.

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