Product Description

Huge shiny leaves, ferny foliage, and flame-colored flowers -- the tropical look is the newest thing in American gardens. The pale pastels of the proper English border have succumbed to the torrid shades and natural, untamed look of the tropics, as gardeners from Florida to Minnesota and Canada flaunt banana plants, elephant ears, giant ferns, and Amazon lilies. In the past twelve months, tropical plants have appeared on the covers of every gardening and lifestyle magazine.

How do you grow tropical plants in the North? The way you grow annuals or tender perennials -- plant new ones each season or winter them over indoors. Even the most mainstream catalogues and garden centers are featuring tropical plants.

Until now, the only thing that has been missing is this definitive book, which shows how to create the look and grow the plants. In Hot Plants for Cool Climates, gardeners will find both inspirational photographs and hard information on how to design the flamboyant tropical landscape and grow the plants that make it happen anywhere in North America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #697362 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 228 pages

From Amazon.com
Using flamboyant plants to evoke tropical gardens is the hottest trend in the gardening world, perhaps best described as the "banana and canna" style of garden design. Hot Plants for Cool Climates makes clear, for those of us without greenhouses or the time and muscles to dig and wrap plants for winter, that this look can be achieved by using tropical-looking hardy plants or by planting container gardeners that can be moved indoors before first frost.

Most tropical plants are perennial in their native habitats, and if we lived in Hawaii, we too could grow agaves, Elephant's Ear, and Angel's Trumpet outdoor year-round. For those of us who garden in less benign climates, the authors give instructions on mulching and wrapping such plants to protect them from freezes. It involves straw and burlap and leaves the plants looking like mummified little soldiers, but able to withstand temperatures 20 degrees lower than without protection.

The gardens pictured in the plentiful color photographs are certainly tempting, as they overflow with huge leaves, flashy foliage, exotic flowers, ponds and vines, all combined into the rich tapestry of a jungle. You can almost smell the jasmine and hear the chattering of the parrots. Thankfully, the chapter on hardy plants for the tropical look (bamboos, grasses, hardy bananas, ferns, Petasites) puts this style of garden within the reach of most gardeners, no matter if they live in Minnesota or California. Especially useful are the appendices, which list plants for a variety of design situations and a source list for the plants recommended throughout the book. --Val Easton

From Publishers Weekly
Garden fashion turns outrageous in this spirited call for cool-climate gardens to shed their English-borne respectability and don the dress of tropical wilds. With their typically hot and humid summers, gardens from Virginia to Minnesota and Oregon can mimic a Hawaiian paradise or a Costa Rican rain forest with layers of hanging greenery, contrasting leafy textures, gargantuan flowers and riotous color. Emboldened by Roth's (Four-Season Landscape) prose and Schrader's knowledge (he is the foremost grower of tropical plants in the New York metro area), readers can start with one of several simple container plantings or design an entire garden room around a temple of faux ruins. Gardeners will come to think of tropicals as big annuals that come into their own when the typical perennial garden is headed for ruin, learn how to begin with tropical-like cold-hardy plants and get the feel for garden design based on contrasting textures and a dominant vertical presence. Half of the book is devoted to an encyclopedia of 100 tropical plants and useful plant lists, categorized by color and pattern. This is certainly one of the liveliest and best-organized presentations on the tropical trend in gardening.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Roth, author of a long list of gardening books, and Schrader, a tropical plant grower in New York, team here to present the latest gardening craze. They explain why the tropical look has become popular, what the various tropical regions are and how their plants are distinctive, how to plan a garden with a tropical look, and how to care for and overwinter the plants. (This section is lavishly illustrated with photos of tropical gardens in temperate-zone locations.) The last half of the book is an "Encyclopedia of Plants"; for each plant, there is a color photo, and the scientific and popular names are given. The plant's habitat, size, and hardiness are provided. Following these basic elements, an article gives more detailed descriptions, suggested uses, and cultivation requirements. The first appendix consists of lists of plants classified by characteristics, e.g., "Tropical Plants with Colorful Leaves." Appendix 2 provides "Sources for Tropical and Tropical-Looking Hardy Plants." Recommended for comprehensive collections or where there is interest.ACarol Cubberley, Univ. of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

pretty hot
The back of the book is helpful, the pictures throught the book are good, but not really inspiring. I'd recommend this book for beginners getting into tropicals. but if your looking for more this wouldn't be the best book for you.

Chicago Bananas and pineapples
Tropical gardening here in the the Midwest has been a passion of mine for over 20 years. I never thought of it as different just big annuals. Thats what I liked about Susan's and Dennis's approach to this book. It was really laid back there just plants was the feeling I was getting from reading this book. They didn't make it complicated. I liked the real expectations they had in the book no hype about growing you own table ready bananas in Maine or something crazy like that just pure and simple you are growing them for the foliage effect don't get carried away. Bananas are just big cannas and brumansias are really big coleus they put it simple and gave great advice and the garden shots are great a real inspiration. The over wintering section was worth the price of the book.

If only the content lived up to the title!
When I first saw the title of this book, I thought it was exactly what I was looking for. But that turned out to be because conceptual accuracy was sacrificed for verbal cleverness on the cover. The book has little to do with gardening in temperate zones (horticulturally understood to be climates free from extremes of heat or cold), or cool climates (horticulturaly understood to mean climates with heat-deprived summers). To the contrary, the book presumes that the gardener lives where there is a significant season of sustained heat, during which time plants will quickly establish themselves from plant-and-pull frost protection measures or regenerate as root-hardy returning perennials. The book is aimed at gardeners in the East; West Coast gardeners will probably be happier with books that advocate attaining the "tropical look" with plants that feature year-round outdoor hardiness and don't require summer heat to perform well.