BOOK REVIEWS

Care-free Plants
Over 250 trouble free plants for a beautiful garden

Reader's Digest
Distributed by Bookwise
$NZ76.95
Reviewed by Mike Gowing

IN their choice of title for this large-format, lavish book, the publishers have dug themselves into a bit of a hole. The promise that when you match "the right care-free plant to the condition of your site, then gardening becomes easy" will leave some of us scratching our heads. Sure, some plants may require less care than others, but the tag "care-free plants" is an oxymoron.

Look up hostas for instance and you'll find this advice on just how to "care" for a vulnerable plant: "Set out snail and slug traps, such as beer traps, use copper barriers which give the pest an electric shock upon contact or sprinkle the area with diatomaceous earth, which forms a sharp barrier". Similarly, on roses, "the list of every problem a rose might have would be long indeed".

Get over the title's absurd window-dressing and you'll find a useful, well laid-out book with basic advice on what plants to choose for various conditions - and exactly how to care for them.

But helichrysum "not easy to propagate"? Come on.

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