When I heard about Paul Bonine’s Black Plants: 75 Striking Choices for the Garden
As the title alludes, the book contains 75 plant selections, each with a paragraph about the plant and a large, full-bleed photo. I like that the descriptions are written in a light, conversational tone. You don’t have to be a plant scholar or even know the proper way to pronounce “clematis” to enjoy reading the book and get useful information from it. Each plant description is accompanied by useful icons that tell you what zone the plant is hardy to and how much water, sunlight, etc it likes.
The plants included are a nicley curated collection of deep burgandy, midnight blue, darkest purple, and other exquisitely dark colors. I appreciate that the plants are a really diverse collection. You can tell that the author tried to include a nice mix of trees, shrubs, annuals, herbaceous perennials, bulbs, etc. The plants also seem evenly divided between black foliage and black flowers.
Another nice thing about the book is its size. You might think that a book of this sort would be coffee table book size. But instead this book is about 7 inches by 6 inches and has a soft cover. I imagine that I’ll put post it note flags on the plants I like and stick the book in my purse and take it with me to the nursery. The small size and light weight (along with the conversational tone and gorgeous photos) also makes the book perfect for reading in the bath while daydreaming about next year’s garden.
I do have a minor quibble with the book’s author though. Some of the plants in the book are not black. For example, ‘Java Red’ Weiglia. The leaves are described as deep green with a purplish cast, but I think it is a real stretch to call anything on the plant even remotely black. There are a couple of other similar plants in the book, but I’d say 95% of the plants are black or nearly black, the sort you’d expect to find in a book about black plants.
Along the same lines of my pettifog above, there are black varieties of certain plants that I like better than the ones chosen for the book. For example, I think ‘Black Stockings’ is a prettier variety of black daylily than ‘Night Wings,’ which is the selection included in Black Plants. It has ruffled petals and a deep yellow throat that really emphasizes the blackness of the flower. But ‘Night Wings’ is often referred to as the blackest daylily, so I guess it really is just personal preference.
All-in-all, this is a great book if you’re looking for some black plant inspiration. And you can’t beat the price. Amazon is currently selling it for $10.17, but even at full price ($14.95) the book is worth every penny. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
You Might Also Like:
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
so has black plant lady continued to harass on all these black plant entries since the expose blog?
Nope. She’s been amazingly silent.
I really enjoyed this book, too. It’s not overwhelming, as some books can be. It just has a nice selection of plants that can be easily found at most good nurseries. Lots of good information contained within these covers!
Thanks for bringing this book to my attention. I love black plants. Were the author’s choices really ‘striking’? I am curious if it is the way he combined his black plant choices with other plants, or if the plants were striking on their own. I already own the ‘other’ book you’ve been referring to, and I am wondering if this book will show me anything new. The way you described it, I might like it just for the photography.
Gwen–The photos are closeups of the plants themselves. Most of the plants were “speciman” plants. The sort that you would want to make the star of a bed or container. So in that respect, I’d say yeah, they were spectacular in their own right.
Does it include much on combining with other plants in the garden or in containers, or is it primarily a cultural encyclopedia?
Susan–Primarily an encyclopedia. But an easy-to-read, enjoyable encyclopedia.
I wrote about Black Plants on my January blog… black in the dead of winter seemed appropriate. Some Sweet Woodruff was a good contrast I thought. Nice suggestions, nice blog! Catherine
I always thought that tulips and roses come in black only, will definitely search for more types, thanks for that