****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Used in nurseries and by landscapers alike, this is one of the best and most thorough books for reference material out there on the market.This book is a definite 6-star. Having used it many years, if you don't know the botanical name for Witch Hazel, it'll simply guide you to Hamamelis. Who wants to use google or a master gardener class to get it right. The newest version I've read in reviews doesn't cross-reference layman's terms with the proper botanical name. At any rate, this is a winner, even if not the newest version.I bought this for my daughter in law's birthday because she had a little container garden in her condo, but they moved and bought a house in a new zone suitable for different plants. That meant she was going to have to rethink her gardening because now she has a big yard with a pool in a very dry area, instead of the cooler coastal climate. She loved it. It gives her the chance to wander the pages and mark what she likes that would be suitable at her new house.... and consider things like possible leaves falling into the pool. I got one when I bought my first house. I knew she would love it too! :)Jam packed with information on plants, growing zones and everything else needed.I was pleased to get a gently used hardcover at such a good price.The western garden book is a Mainstay in any home with a garden. It gives you very accurate information and helps to plan out regarding appropriate for your area, your region and your neighborhood. Always like this book.I am a landscaper and use the most recent Western Garden Book constantly as a reference. One of the small complaints about it is that it is hard for people who don't know plants to get any idea of how they look from the pictures in the old Sunset books.This latest 2007 edition improves that greatly. Every page has color, and there are tons of helpful illustrations to show beginners how to propagate, prune, and do a number of other basic gardening tasks. There are a lot more photos than in the old book, and they are vivid, larger than before, and are much better at illustrating how the plant really looks.Another thing that is neat about this edition is that the plant index has been eliminated. You just go to the alphabetical listing of what you are looking for, and if you have the wrong name or a common name, a short listing will direct you to the correct page. The last version had a plant index as well as a vocabulary index, and so I'd often be flipping through the wrong index - but this book eliminates that totally. Incorporating the index into the rest of the book makes things a lot more intuitive to find. And fruits and veggies are listed by their common names, which is nice. I know when most people think of an apple, they don't think to connect that with the genus Malus.All the plant lists, such as for deer-resistant plants or other special considerations, have been revised and updated, and there are still glossy photographs of many of the listed plants.Even if you have the last edition available, this book is well worth the $23 to upgrade. It is really so much more helpful than before, and is a real pleasure to read.The beauty of the Sunset Garden books is in the way they combine high-quality information about plants and garden techniques with their zone system, which identifies micro-climates in the western states and keys the plants to those zones. Which rose variety will thrive in your neighborhood and which will not? Find out here. A must for western gardeners.This edition is a HUGE improvement over my original copy which has to be a good 25 yrs old. Here, each plant group has an illustration, whereas in my old book, there may be one illustration per page. Plus there is more specific 'planting' type of information, and just more information in general. Glad I upgraded.I somehow managed to lose my old copy of this book, which I used to use often. This one has been updated and is even better than before. I think it's pretty much the "bible" of gardening books for the west.great resource for west coast gardeners! Very useful and well illustrated and set up book- it is a defintie go to resource. The only thing that I was a little dissapointed in was that it was shipped in a green plastic bag so it was not well protected during shipping and was a little beaten up. The sellor is working on the mail delivery packaging change and was very responsive to my concerns about itThe condition was not new - it had been shipped without plastic and the cardboard box caused the pages to become wavy - it was quite disappointing
