Maples for Gardens: A Color Encyclopedia

There are few things more beautiful than trees, and Japanese Maples are among the most beauteous. Just paging through this comprehensive, lovingly photographed book is to fall in love, and to determine to get at least one---or two---or three--. And with this book, you can even identify it, lest the nursery make a mistake; not uncommon. If you live where you can't raise them (They do have some needs in regard to climate.) just buy the book and roll around on the luscious pictures.

Color choices, complete growth patterns and more information than the casual gardener can cope with make this an excellent reference.

What a refief. After perusing at least twenty books on maple trees, I came across this gem. It is hands-down the most extensively researched book on the subject I've ever come across. There are hundreds of pictures which are extremely useful; many books will give only 4 or 5 pictures for an entire species. It contains an exhausting amount of information that proved invaluable in making my decision about which acer to plant. Once I discovered this book, my research days were over.

I was looking for a good reference book on maples and Japanese maples, and was seriously considering both this one and Vertrees' book on Japanese maples. However, since this book included both types of maples, I considered it to be the better value. Also, this book has 683 color photos, and one third of the book is dedicated to Japanese maples, while Vertrees has 250 color photos and is dedicated only to Japanese maples. I still may buy Vertrees book as well, but if you are trying to choose between them, I'd go with this one. I spent many pleasurable hours just thumbing through the descriptions and gorgeous photos of maples.