[(RHS Plants for Places 2011)] [Author: Linden Hawthorne] published on (March, 2011)

I get a huge amount of enjoyment out of my garden and thoroughly enjoyed planting up my south facing patio area with an array of very colourful shrubs which give interest throughout the year. My back garden, on the other hand, has an enormous protected oak tree in it, plus 6 large Bay Trees and as a result, many of my boarders are shady, the soil is in quite bad condition - regardless of the amount of top soil I have added along with farmyard manure. This has resulted in many of my plants struggling and ultimately a distinct lack of flowers / colour and interest which I long for. In speaking to a colleague of mine at work, I was to discover that as a hobby he landscaped / designed gardens. I explained my dilemma and he recommended the RHS Plants for Places book which he considered to be his bible in making gardens work, regardless of their conditions. He also had very large trees in his garden, so suffered from a similar situation to myself originally, but looking at his photos, his shady back garden was alive with colour and interest. He recommended the Beauty Bush and Cornus shrubs as coping with such conditions and told me that there was an array of flowering shrubs that would bring my garden alive all year round. I have since purchased this book, along with a number of others in the same range (Pruning, what to plant when, and gardening month by month) - many of them being second hand through Amazon and they are all just fabulous. The book is pocket sized, is superbly illustrated with wonderful photographs of the plants, all grouped together regarding the conditions they can tolerate and is extremely informative. I have been given so much inspiration that I have since purchased a number of flowering shrubs and trees that are not necessarily standard in the local gardening centres and am now going through the process of planting them. I have made many of my purchases through the Thompson and Morgan web site as they have a huge choice and are a reputable seller. If you are like me and just need a bit of inspiration on what will work where, the hardiness of the plant and whether its suitable for a novice or requires expert handling - then this book is for you. I would have no hesitation in recommending it and am just thankful that my work colleague shared its existence with me.

This book has been invaluable to me and my colleagues who work at a garden centre. When customers ask questions on what plant goes where it is so useful to consult the book as sometimes you can get a mental block or run out of ideas at that moment. As you know there are hundreds of plants and this guide is an excellent reference to the most common and popular ones. We even allow the customers to use it on occasions when we are a bit too busy for personal attention. I'm sure that a lot more copies have been sold after they have seen how good it is!The format is clear and the pictures are quite good making it easy to recognize the plants. The best thing is it's so small you can put it in a large pocket or in your bag if you're out shopping for plants. Highly recommended !

Perfect, pocket sized reference book (551 pages), each double page is split into four, with a good photo of the plant in question, and a brief synopsis of the plants likes and dislikes as well as names of variants. The index is very good - listing both English and Latin names of each plant.Ideal for popping in your bag before you hit the garden centre and buy completely the wrong plants for your garden! Also great to check whilst you're in the garden centre if something is in fact going to be happy in your garden before you spend a fortune! Wish I'd bought this a year ago!!Great when bought in tandem with What Plant When which tells you when things will flower, so you don't end up with a fantastic display in May and bare twigs in August... although I'm only in year 2 of gardening, so that still may happen, book or no book!

I have bought three of these over the years have lost or given as permanent loan. There aren't many books with plant choices according to location and this is the best I've found so far. It has the additional bonus of being small enough to fit into handbag of large pocket ...I take it when I go plant buying at shows.

I have loads of gardening books and they go into great detail but most are large and you have to wade through loads of information to get to what you want. This book is small enough to keep in the car and depending on handbag size to carry round if you wish. It is very easy to follow and saves money as you don't end up buying plants that stand no chance of growing in your garden. You don't have to be extremely knowledgable about plants as all the information you need is is in the book including eventual size.

Fantastic reference book for the discerning gardener, excellent no-nonsense advice; which plant, which type of soil, all the information you could ever need, without the internet!!.

A very useful book (I am a professional gardener). It covers a wide range of plants and is small enough to carry around to show customers (I use it at home too). Arrived promptly and well-packaged

RHS Plants for Places I bought this RHS book because the RHS have never let me down in the past. We're doing our garden up this year and know that this little book (small in size but not in information)will be invaluable as we make the choices and decisions of where to put what plant.We won't be wasting hard earned money buying plants that don't work with either the light, shade, soil, or width/height expected.The photgraphs are fabulous as always with a RHS book. Information is well laid out and easy to read.Thanks again Amazon.