Northwest (SmartGarden Regional Guides) (ISBN 0789493667)

Misguided geography:
Although this book is touted as a regional guide for the Northwest, it include almost the entire NW quadrant of the United States, including Alaska. It is impossible to combine all the USDA Hardiness and AHS Heat zones found the Great Plains, the Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains and the Southwest Desert areas and expect to have a useful catalog of successful plants. Like most DK books, there are many beautiful photos, however many the same photos of individual plants reappear throughout the book. The photo of the blue lacecap hydranga 'Blue Wave' appears five times, Scots Pine six times, and probably at least 50% of the plants, two or more times. Either the book could have been reduced in size or cost, or photos of other plants could have been used. At least then it would be a more useful photographic reference book.

Beautiful Reference Tool:
This is a beautiful garden book! The pictures are usually of the plant rather that just one bloom as you often see. I have found the layout very useful, even though each plant may be listed more than once. I like that it is broken down by category, which means that some plants are listed more than once (Blue Wave Lacecap Hydrangea is in "Shrubs for Shade", "Shrubs for acidic soils", "Large Shrubs", "Shrubs with blue, purple flowers" & "Shrubs for use as specimens"). I usually am looking for a plant for a specific place in my yard and with this listing I can see what is suggested for the conditions in that spot. It is a beautiful reference tool and I am planning on purchasing another copy to give as a Christmas gift.