Giant perennials are show-stoppers in the garden. There is something magical about the fact that starting from nothing in spring they rise to towering heights by midsummer only to disappear again for the winter. These are plants that make a statement and can be used to provide a backdrop to a herbaceous border or as specimens to draw the eye and amaze the visitor. From the astounding gunnera, 2.4m (8ft) with its leaves as big as the biggest golf umbrella, to the spectacular verbascum (giant mullein) as tall as a tree at 1.8-2.7m (6-9ft), or the socking great Eupatorium purpureum, with 2.1m (7ft) tall stems and cinnamon pink flowers. Quite simply these plants make us feel like Lilliputians. Covering a wide range of herbaceous perennials, including some biennials and bulbs, Giant Perennials provides at-a-glance information for everything you need to know about these amazing plants. In addition to design ideas and planting suggestions, Giant Perennials has an extensive directory of these majestic plants with easy-to-use symbols that show you size, spread, planting situation, cultivation needs and hardiness. Whether you have a large country garden or a small town plot, you can give your garden extra oomph with these amazing, vigorous plants. This book provides you with all the information you need to choose, plant and maintain these garden "heavyweights", which, given the right conditions, will outbox all the other candidates for fame and glory in the garden.

About the Author
Susan Berry is an established writer and editor specializing in gardening. She has written, among others, the highly successful Complete Guide to Gardening in Containers, Best Plants, Irises and The Low Maintenance Garden. She edited and produced Beth Chatto's The Green Tapestry and Christopher Lloyd's The Flower Garden. She also writes for the gardening press, including Gardener's World, Homes and Gardens and She magazines. Steven Wooster is a highly successful garden photographer. He won the Garden Features Award 2000 of the Garden Writer's Guild and his work has appeared in numerous books and magazines, including Beth Chatto's The Green Tapestry and The Gravel Garden.

Reviews
Add panache and height to your borders with "Giant Perennials". Foliar interest or flowers, create a bold statement with this extensive range of plants. Contrary to its title, the book contains biennials such as Salvia turkestanica, digitalis and hollyhocks but their imposing presence and generous habit of self-seeding excuses this misnomer. Giant leaves such as rheum and gunnera, spiky foliage such as onopordums and yuccas will add contrast to flower borders whilst the sunny flowers of inula and rudbeckia will ensure late summer colour at eye level. Covering all four seasons with the inclusion of evergreens, this book by garden writer Sue Berry spans the year. Forget small and go bold and create a garden with impact, with pizzazz and a huge 'wow' factor with which to dazzle your neighbours. Gloriously illustrated with the photographs of Steven Wooster, this is a colourful inspirational guide to these towering amazons of the plant world. - Lucy Watson



Book Information
ISBN 9781855859760
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint Collins & Brown
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Weight(grams) 490g