Timber Press, in Portland, Oregon celebrated their 25th anniversary last year. If you are a gardener or have a special interest in plants or ethnobotany, you undoubtedly have at least one of their fine books in your library. I suspect that if you are reading this column, you have copious numbers of their fine books in your library. Many of us make moths look slothful when compared to our eagerness to see the new release list from Timber Press each season.
In September 2003, Timber Press released an astonishing encyclopedia called FLORA: A Gardener's Encyclopedia, with Sean Hogan as the Chief Consultant on the project. (ISBN 0-88192-538-1; 1584 pp, 2 volumes with slipcase, 11,000+ color photos, 101 color illustrations, 14 maps, CD-ROM included with first edition, List Price $99.95).
Their project is ultimately a grand success for a broad spectrum of users. I won't say readers, even though it works like a dictionary in that you look up a plant and then find yourself reading on and on - and being visually caught by the stunning photographs.
Then you remember a favorite plant and look to see what they have to say about it, and on the threads go, mesmerizing, educational, exciting and endless. There is not enough newsprint herein to even begin to cover the breadth, depth and fascinating potential.
Succinctly put, try to remember when you first looked at or received an encyclopedia - that sense of excitement as you marvelled at the pictures and the information. Anything was possible.
Their CD-ROM is an additional modern tool for an encyclopedia format. It takes the naysayers, those that can't participate unless it is interactive, and brings them under the tent. It allows the user to create scenarios, such as a rose-hued flower in summer in an eastern exposure, and look them up.
The Plant Chooser will select some candidates that you can then find further descriptions of in the encyclopedia or at the many links available to gardening websites. The potential for research is limited only by imagination.
This is where I think the title is misleading. This encyclopedia can be useful and educationally challenging/exciting for non-gardeners as well. The photographs of plants in their natural habitats can lead inquiring minds to issues about plant communities around the world. The series of photographs showing the same plant in the different seasons will open up discussions about color and scale, weather and seasons.
The inclusion of the vast array of new cultivars from the past 20 years creates a usefulness for older and younger gardeners. Who can stay abreast of all the plant breeding, the new varieties we see at our local nurseries or on the Internet?
This encyclopedia will bring enormous pleasure to people interested in plants. If that interest has become narrowly focused on just one genus, or only native plants, or tropical plants, then the sheer hefty weight (15 lbs.) will annoy. The specialists will have found their special favorite resources. For a person new to gardening, one who is still figuring out composting, irrigation systems, pest management, or where to put the deck, the arbor, the fence and the swimming pool, Timber Press has other wonderful books for them.
For the adventurous and sophisticated person who would rather talk about plants than movies or politics, for the independent thinker who likes the challenge of another way of looking at or studying plants, this incredible project from Timber Press is the best bargain out there these days[[In-content Ad]]
