BOOK REVIEWS

Designing
with Roses

Tony Lord
distributed by Bookwise
$NZ54.95

THIS is the paperback version of Tony Lord's attractive and useful book, which has been available in hardback since 1999. An English horticulturist and writer, Lord's passion for "the queen of flowers" drives Designing with Roses. In pushing the versatility of roses "for almost every garden" (he allows that the genus has been frequently misused) Lord's practical aesthetic covers 200 pages of scintillating pictures and informative text.

There's detailed information on shape, colour, scent, foliage, immunity levels, form and flowering times. Lord writes for a wide readership, taking into account local climates and native plants. There are chapters on Roses for Structure, Roses as Punctuation, Roses in Mixed Borders and Roses for Wild Gardens.

At the end of the book is a gem for growers - Lord's "pick of the bunch". We get groupings of roses for ground cover, bush roses (short and tall), shrub roses, climbing, roses for arcades, pergolas and catenaries, roses for autumn colour, roses for bedding and so on, in all 13 pages capped by 27 roses that "should be more widely grown".

Whether you're a rosarian or a dabbler, you won't be able go past this book.

Weekend Gardener, Issue 141, 2004, Page 26
(reproduced in Horticulture in New Zealand:
Journal of the Royal NZ Institute of Horticulture 2005, 8(1): 19)

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH