Taylor's Weekend Gardening Guide to Fragrant Gardens: How to Select and Make the Most of Scented Flowers and Leaves

The photographs in this book are gorgeous and the text is interesting, informative and inspiring. Rather than leaping right into a description of flowering plants, however, the author begins with a chapter on smell itself, discussing it's importance, the fragrances that were popular in the Victorian era and those that are sought after today. The plants themselves are divided by type: annuals (which, for some reason, is where he puts scented geraniums); perennials; roses; bulbs, corms and tubers; shrubs and vines; water gardens; night gardens; and scented houseplants. Each chapter describes a large variety of plants and explains where and how to grow them. Also included is a design map for planting a border of annuals; a brief section on the diseases and pests that attack roses; a short chapter on general garden maintenance; and a complete index (but no list of suppliers).The author has an easy to read, rambling writing style. He tells stories, gives personal reflections, supplies quotes from litereature and horticultural writings, and clearly know his subject. If you are looking for a general book on fragrant gardens, then you'll probably like this one a great deal. But if you're looking for more of a guide to scented plants, which ones to grow where, in a concise format, then this isn't the book for you. The author does supply light/water/soil requirements and hardiness zones for the plants in the book, but it's included in the text, it isn't in an easy-to-find table which means that you have to read through the entire thing in order to find appropriate plants for your garden.This book is so pretty and fun to read that it would make a nice present for someone who likes to read gardening literature but it really isn't for the person who, like myself, was looking for quick reference guide to the types of scented plants for zone 5 that grow in full sun and under dense trees.