Flowers A to Z: Buying, Growing, Cutting, Arranging - A Beautiful Reference Guide to Selecting and Caring for the Best from Florist and Garden

Many people love the idea of a house full of fresh-cut flowers, but sadly, most have no idea how to select, care for, and arrange flowers, much less grow them. Flowers A to Z is a superb guide for anyone who enjoys flowers and wants to celebrate them in the home or garden. Author Cecelia Heffernan, a floral designer by trade, provides a wealth of information on how to cut, purchase, arrange, care for, and grow all types of flowers.

The book is divided into sections covering everything leading up to a beautiful flower arrangement sitting on your dining room table. It begins with a chapter on hardware, which details all the basic tools--from floral shears to floral wire and tape--that you'll need for cutting and arranging flowers, as well as advice on choosing and caring for vases and other containers. The "Handling Flowers" chapter explains the proper way to cut, condition, and care for flowers to ensure the most attractive and long-lasting arrangements. The author sprinkles valuable tidbits of advice throughout the book. She suggests, for instance, that it is better to use branches or thick foliage as arranging aids instead of floral foam, chicken wire, or other artificial aids, as those can shorten the vase life of flowers significantly. This section concludes with a concise and informative guide to growing flowers in your home garden.

The final section, which makes up the bulk of the book, is an alphabetically arranged guide to flowers from agapanthus to zinnia. Each flower is depicted in a gorgeous full-page photograph, while smaller images show the flowers in different stages of development, illustrating the difference between fresh and older flowers. The informative text is written in a handy reference style, detailing the specifics of each flower: its scientific name, available colors, scent, how long the blooms will last after being cut, relative cost, and other useful information.

The gorgeous photographs, accessible text, and handy cross-referencing will surely inspire many readers to fill their homes and gardens with blossoms. --Robin Donovan