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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1565949 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Anna Pavord has no patience for dwarf plants, pastels or winter gardens, not to mention all-white beds. She has a sharp eye and a predilection for cheeky Britishisms and she's not afraid to use either. Plant Partners is organised into seasons--the real growing seasons: signs of spring, spring turns to summer, high summer, and into autumn. Within these seasons Pavord presents 60 "star" plants that should be highlighted in the perennial bed. For each of her favourite plants she provides a supporting cast of two varieties--annuals, bulbs or perennials--that partner particularly well with the stars and under the same soil and light conditions. The groupings might be designed so that all of the flowers will be in bloom at once (Pasque flower with grape hyacinth and deep-purple primroses, for example), or so that when one flower's blooms are just starting to fade another's are waiting in the wings (lily-of-the-valley with a hellebore and barrenwort). A listing of "alternative" partners extends the range of choices to include more unusual plants and ones that might be more challenging to grow. Foliage is given as much consideration as blooms:

'Darling! Salmon! How brave!' exclaim the white-garden brigade as they sharpen their pruning knives for a horticultural mercy-killing. You might as well fall on your garden fork there and then as try to explain that the point of the rodgersia they are looking at is not the buff-pink flower but the whirls of bronze underneath it.

But her exhortation to use foliage--as well as grasses and non-flowering perennials as "star" plants--to best advantage cannot be ignored in Plant Partners. Pavord's advice throughout is, as always, practical and opinionated and highly entertaining. --Liana Fredley

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Customer Reviews

Worth having
This book has plenty of photos and also provides notes on shape, texture, soil types etc for plants.

It does have an American flavour, but as latin names are of course used this shouldn't be a problem.

I toyed with the idea of returning it, as the format was not so easy to follow with pages of text and tables at the back, but in the end decided to keep it as it does have some information that is not provided in the other garden books I have.

An inspiring and beautiful book.
Anna Pavord gives good value for money.She has so much experience and is able to express her ideas in a clear and interesting way. This book is excellent for the gardener who needs a little inspiration and help in choosing what plants to put together and be successful.Additionally, she gives alternatives if you don't like her suggestions. On top of this, the book is beautifully presented.

I loved this book
This is just the kind of gardening book I like to read. Full of practical advice, and beautifully written. I just love this kind of thing: "If slugs ate bindweed it would be easier to believe that we are all part of some Grand Design" - of this one: "One of the few infallible rules about gardening is that a garden can never have too many tulips". Lovely pictures, too. I am going to try out some of these combinations.