Rock Garden Plants: A Color Encyclopedia

I recently joined the local chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society, and this is their major reference book. Baldassare Mineo did an excellent job with this encyclopedic assemblage of alpine and rock garden plants. He owned the Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery for over 27 years, which exemplifies his working knowledge of these plants. A must-have for those interested in starting a rock garden, and especially for experienced rock gardeners.

There is a rock garden plant for everyone and many of them are represented in this catalog, uh, I mean book. It is not a catalog because there is no certainty that you will ever be able to acquire, much less keep and grow, the particular plant that you love at first sight in this book.Since alpines are found all over the world and represent an assortment of ecological communities there is not a classifiable and finite family of plants. In this book you will constantly feel that you are only skimming the surface of a much much larger subject. There is barely enough information to help you keep the plant alive until you do learn it better. There are thumbnail images with thumbnail descriptions. Like I said, it is a glossy availability list. Only they are not necessarily available.But they are so cute! All that is needed is a properly situated shelf with a few artistic pots and you too can nurture a tiny corner of paradise. It scales up from there indefinitely, until the problem is bringing your face close enough to fully appreciate each plant. Well, then there is the problem of keeping them alive. You are the artisan of rocks and gravel. These plants are your fragile gems.

Gives names if plants to look for with images

EXCELLENT book! I'm sooooo happy to have found it! Well written, color photos on every page.

I went to the library at my college and check it out. Just after looking at it I ordered it on here. Very nice job! Great info and great selection of plants. Not like the handbook this has plenty of plants.

A classic! No gardener should be without it, rock gardener or not!

If you aren't sure what plant you have, browse the pictures here and you might be able to come up with an ID.

The pictures and the exhaustive descriptions make choosing a plant even easier than seeing it in person.