BOOK REVIEWS

Foliage for the Contemporary New Zealand Garden

Julian Matthews
Godwit (Random House)
Hardback, 263 pages
$NZ39.99

Reviewed by Gordon Roberts

FORMER Weekend Gardener writer and author Julian Matthews is a traditional gardener but has a real eye for foliage plants – demonstrated in his Waikanae garden on Wellington’s Kapiti Coast. He recognises life has become busier and gardeners now look for more permanence in their landscaping and, with this, foliage has come into its own.

Julian illustrates this attractive book with his own photographs, and reviews some 114 plants for a range of New Zealand climates and regions.

Foliage plants can be subtle, soothing and sophisticated, and others dazzling, daring and extrovert – they are ideal for providing a garden with year-round interest.

Julian obviously loves texture, one of the great characteristics of foliage plants, and his photographs show the extraordinary range of surfaces of the plants he features.

The book comes with full care and cultivation advice – a real aid for landscapers.

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