Wyman's Gardening Encyclopedia, Revised & Expanded Edition

If what you want is information and lots of it, this is your book. It's not sexy and the illustrations remind one of another, earlier, century, but they're nicely explanatory and comfortable. If you read enough you discover he has a sense of humor, also. Reminds me a little of Julia Child or Irma S. Rombauer (the original author of The Joy of Cooking) in confident tone, personal quirkiness and good cheer. Comprehensive coverage in context, and with enough basic science thrown in to help keep you situated.

What it lacks in glitz (American Hort Society books for example), it more than makes up for in information and organization. Covers everything. If you want to look up information on growing a plant, general information about one, diseases it gets and their treatments: this is the place. Further there is copius information on general gardening, recommendations for different conditions, and on and on, all written in a wry style that I enjoy. If you want beautiful books with lots pictures of pictures try the AHS series, if you want to look stuff up about the pictures, you can not do better than Wyman's.

I have many gardening books and catalogs in my library, however, Wyman's is the one I refer to time and again because of its comprehensive discussion of each plant. If I could only have one reference, this would be it.

Offering more information than you'll find anywhere else, this encyclpedia does NOT read like a pretty plant catalogue filled with the usual tired (and brief) descriptions. This book is a labor of love: full and opinionated, proof that a picture is not worth a thousand, well-researched words.

Compared to other gardening encyclopedias, Wyman's has more of the answers more of the time with comprehensive lists, excellent illustrations and diagrams, and best of all, pleasing typography! A heavy user of horticultural reference material, if I were confined to one single source, Wyman's would be it