Product Description

Japanese plants have had an unmistakable influence on the gardens of the world. Who can imagine gardens without flowering cherries, hostas, Japanese maples, or magnolias? For all the popularity of these plants in international gardens, however, few gardeners know the full story of Japanese plants—their history and uses in gardens in Japan, their horticultural merits for gardens of all kinds, even the meaning and symbolism of their native names. Now for the first time, a color encyclopedia provides an authoritative overview of the Japanese garden flora.

Authors Ran Levy-Yamamori and Gerard Taaffe are uniquely suited to the task of writing Garden Plants of Japan. Both are fluent Japanese speakers as well as expert horticulturists and journalists. Both have spent years studying and photographing plants in their native habitat, as well as non-native plants (such as tulip trees and florists’ chrysanthemums) that the Japanese have come to treasure and adopt as their own. The authors even document little-known wild plants that show potential for Japanese and foreign gardens alike. Several thousand species and cultivated varieties are described in all, with more than 775 dramatic photographs to illustrate them.

Garden Plants of Japan serves as a manual for horticultural advice, a source of inspiration for armchair gardeners, even a guidebook for travelers to Japan. Sumptuously illustrated, it explores the entire palette of plants cultivated in Japan, from mosses to hepaticas, ferns to magnolias, and bamboos to cherry trees, carefully noting which plants are authentically Japanese and which are transplants. The selection of plants and the amount of detail and insight are unprecedented.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #429529 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 440 pages

From Booklist
Passionate plantsmen Levy-Yamamori and Taaffe have gleaned a deep knowledge of the native species that grow in Japan's climate zones, which range from alpine to warm-temperate. Providing a geographical context for the diversity of Japan's thousands of wild plants, they shed light on important cultural and symbolic plant associations. Such observations carry over into a well-illustrated and extensive encyclopedia of trees and shrubs, vines and herbaceous plants, grasses and ferns. Each entry covers cultivation requirements and illuminating details about how plants are used in gardens or bonsai, along with illuminating horticultural points of interest and historical background. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Spend an hour with this book, and you'll be wondering why we all don't grow the delicate, fragrant, early-blooming Japanese apricot ... as well as a whole garden's worth of little-known pines, bamboos and flowering cherries."—Valerie Easton, Seattle Times, November 17, 2004 (Valerie Easton Seattle Times )

"The authors develop an extensive plant encyclopedia, a kind of guided tour of the plants Japanese gardeners enjoy and, in many cases, revere."—Marty Ross, Horticulture, May 2005 (Marty Ross Horticulture )

"There's something here for everyone intrigued by Japan or by plants."—Josephine Bridges, Asian Reporter, July 12, 2005 (Josephine Bridges Asian Reporter )

Spend an hour with this book, and you'll be wondering why we all don't grow the delicate, fragrant, early-blooming Japanese apricot ... as well as a whole garden's worth of little-known pines, bamboos and flowering cherries.Valerie Easton, Seattle Times, November 17, 2004 (Seattle Times )

The authors develop an extensive plant encyclopedia, a kind of guided tour of the plants Japanese gardeners enjoy and, in many cases, revere.Marty Ross, Horticulture, May 2005 (Horticulture )

There's something here for everyone intrigued by Japan or by plants.Josephine Bridges, Asian Reporter, July 12, 2005 (Asian Reporter )

About the Author
Ran Levy-Yamamori received a B.A. in horticulture from Hebrew University and has worked as a field biologist and natural history writer. He wrote Wild Flowers of Japan and co-authored Flowers of the Eastern Mediterranean. Currently he writes on nature for various publications in Japan, Europe, and his native Israel, including the popular "Flower of the Week" column which appears on the front page of The Japan Times’ Sunday edition.

Gerard Taaffe received his horticulture education at National Botanic Gardens in Dublin, the Royal Horticultural Society garden at Wisley, and the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. He has held several senior positions in horticulture and is currently a freelance landscape gardener and designer who teaches garden design in Japan. He also writes a garden column for The Japan Times.

Customer Reviews

Illustratred Encyclopedic Guide to Japanese Plants
Visually appealing with its hundreds of bright color photographs and encyclopedic in its scope and content, this reference also has the clarity of organization and practicality of a garden handbook. Each of the listings of the hundreds of Japanese plants gives notes on appearance, cultivation, and use (e. g., ground cover, attractive spring flowers, potted plant) of the particular plant along with the Japanese and English names, interesting points, and related plants. As noted in the Foreword by E. Charles Nelson, the Japanese, with their insular culture, had no desire to go abroad seeking foreign plants--nor did they need to with the variety available in their homeland. Yet American gardeners and others readily took to Japanese plants when Japan opened up to the West, and continue to do so increasingly in recent years. This attractive, complete, useful reference fully satisfies an interest in the variety of Japanese plants. Both authors have extensive backgrounds and solid reputations in horticulture.

Niwaki
I just loved all the information and pictures it has on pruning your evergreen and trees. I found it very informative.