Landscaping with Tropical Plants: Design Ideas, Creative Garden Plans, Cold-Climate Solutions

My husband and I decided to re-landscape and have been searching all over for a goo reference book for tropical plants. This is even better than I expected. It gives tips on garden types; it has a map in the back that breaks the planting zones down to a miniscule level and will reference it through the book. The back half lists different varieties of tropical plants, where they grow best and tips on how to grow, protect, and overwinter them. It has been a huge help in our planning!

I do live in tropics. For the last year I have this book, I open it once every three days just to enjoy the pictures and trying to achieve the same in my garden. Pure happiness! This can also be the reason to buy a book, not only to seek advise of the high professional landscaper level as some reviews comment!

Aimed at the temperate climate gardener with a yen for the tropical look, this book provides basic instructions and suggested plant selections. To maximize the chances of success, seasonal guidelines are suggested, along with ways of creating tropical gardens inside, and in sheltered spaces. Typical of the Sunset books, there are ample attractive photographs. The added bonus for the garden planner is the number of effective combinations shown, and an array of landscape ideas as well. Special care and treatment of these plants in cold climates is discussed. Includes a list of garden zones with maps, and an index. For further information on a number of these plants, see: Ornamental Plants & Flowers of Tropical Mexico.

If you're like me, you prefer beautiful tropical landscape images over reading text about gardens. This book does an excellent job of that, particularly for the price. I regularly purchase books on tropical gardening, and what I don't want is another listing of plants, I can get that from the mail order catalogues. I like to see images of tropical environments that I can consider recreating, or views that show good tropical garden designs of actual plants (not drawn images). For the money, this book is well worth it.

I found this book to be well organized, inspirational and informative with beautiful pictures of landscapes and common tropical plants. The book also gives tips on planting in general.