Arranging Flowers ("Best of Martha Stewart Living" ... (ISBN 0609803611)

Amazon.com Review:
A beautiful floral arrangement can add the perfect touch of beauty and elegance to your home, and who would know this better than our favorite doyenne of the dainty, Martha Stewart. In Arranging Flowers, Martha shares basic principles and techniques for creating lovely bouquets for any occasion or season. "Flowers," Martha declares, "belong everywhere, in every nook and cranny of the house." Assuming no special knowledge or skill from the reader, Martha takes you step by step through the process of finding the perfect vase for your arrangement, conditioning cut flowers for maximum beauty and lifespan, and creating a sturdy foundation for your creation. The second half of this book is an exposition on seasonal arrangements, along with specific tips on growing, buying, and caring for individual types of flowers. One of the great charms of this book is the trademark lavish photos that are in all Martha Stewart books. Nearly every page of Arranging Flowers features beautiful, vivid photos of flower bouquets of all types, from humble Sweet Peas to the glorious Double-Headed Peony. With Martha as your guide, even the most ham-fisted palooka will be inspired to create dazzling works of floral art. --Perry Atterberry

A Disappointment - Well Below Expectations:
Perhaps my expectations were too high? Martha produces a beautiful magazine and her new Best of Weddings book is superb so I thought that this book, although older, would be a nice addition. I was disappointed. Although the book was published in 1999, it seemed even more outdated than that. The flowers used seemed repeated over and over again and the book was centered completely around the varieties in Martha's garden. For a more thorough view, I'd like to recommend 2 books in place of this one. Jane Packer's Fast Flower Arranging is fantastic and shows beautiful arrangements that can be made quickly even by a novice. For actual, technical "how to" steps and design theory, I'd recommend Judith Blacklock's "Flower Arranging" (might be called Teach Yourself Flower Arranging in some indexes). Once you know proper floral design techniques, you can use any kind of flowers (NOT just those from Martha's garden) to create beautiful arrangements.

Not exactly a how-to book, but great pictures:
I wouldn't really consider this a how-to book, as most of it is pictures of arrangements with a paragraph or two about the flowers. To paraphrase, "Martha loves spring when the peonies in her garden are blooming. They look stunning massed together." Most of the description is of her garden. However, the photographs ARE wonderful and gave me many, many ideas. I checked this book out of the library to get ideas for my wedding, and it's a book that I've renewed several times. Most of the arrangements included are simple yet elegant, involving one species of flower or monochromatic color schemes. I recommend this book as long as you're looking for arrangement ideas, not step-by-step instructions.

A real letdown and overpriced:
I found the Fine Art of Flower Arranging by Nancy D'Oench, Mick Hales. It is so much better than Martha's book.

Pretty pictures, almost no directions:
This book offers lots of well-composed shots of nice arrangements, but provides virtually no information about how to make them. Note that the book dates from 1999, so it's a little out of date as well. Not worth the money.

arranging flowers:
I THINK THIS BOOK WILL BE WONDERFUL BECAUSE ALL THINGS MARTHA IS. AND I LOVED YUOR PAGE TOO. THANKS RUBIA