I absolutely love this book. The full color photography is excellent. The book is printed on very high quality paper. When I have down time, I find myself sitting on the floor with this book just looking through it page by page. It is my definitive go-to for garden plant information.

This book has just about every plant you can imagine but it has its drawbacks because of it. It is extremely heavy and you must know the scientific name of a plant or look in the index for the common name to find it in the book. I guess I was hoping for a little more "user friendly" book. It has lots of pics and might be great for the more experienced gardener.

like others have said .. the pictures in this gigantic book are slick and glossy.. there are tons of plants listed.. the problem is .... a lot of the info is wrong ... i have found the plant heights and zones are different than other books such as hortus III, sunset western gardeners etc ... the pics are great ,, but i wont even opoen this book any more because i dont want the wrong info stuck in my head.... if they re-edited , corrected this book and added a little meat to the info it would be one of the best and the $50 would have been worth the money...

Although I'm rather new to serious gardening, the A-Z Encyclopedia from The Horticultural Society is a MUST HAVE ! Most of the information overwhelmed me at first but I was able to research my garden plants for this summer and hope to have a full season of color.The local University Horticultural Dept. had said " If you own only one reference book on garden plants, this is the bible of gardeners ". Pictures are beautiful and the cross referenced index from common to scientific is very easy to use.Don't be scared off by the price tag because it's truly worth the money. Only draw-back is that it's so heavy you'll need a solid surface to ponder through it.

Even in winter I've found joy in gardening. This book is the most comprehensive plant resource book I have ever used. This book is more than a resource book, however. It is a book for dreaming.With the beautiful and abundant illustrations this book offers, it allows me to relive my summer garden and dream of the years ahead. I've spent many delightful hours just browsing through the pages.Anyone who is considering purchasing this book will not be disappointed, it is an ambrosia for the senses.Don't forget to fortify your mailbox, with over a thousand pages, this book is heavy!

This is an excellent source of information about plants and the photographs are wonderful.