Botany for Gardeners, Fourth Edition: An Introduction to the Science of Plants Paperback – August 16, 2022

Loved this book!! Very insightful, it taught be a lot about botany as someone who is interested in plants but hasn't gone to school for it. Explanations are accompanied by pictures and explained well. I would recommend this book to anyone into plants and gardening that is curios about the scientific side of things.

I decided to plant a couple of cypress trees. I wanted to be sure I positioned them well to pollinate each other. And so it began. When I am curious , I ask a lot of questions. After reading some books for gardeners, which tended to disappoint, I realized I needed a serious Botany class. Not an overview. This book turned out to be perfect for me! It is 'balanced' just right between the science of plant life, and the practical side of getting things done (trees planted). The book covers all classifications of plant reproduction, so -- you are going to be amazed at what all is going on right outside your door. Fun !!

Great book for those who are trying to understand what’s going on in their garden. In particular, I bought this to understand when how and why to prune my bonsai. Recommend recommended by an American bonsai, Master. A+ read!

Great intro for getting into botany. Easy to read and very informative.

I love this book. Super detailed, easy to read, and great for beginners. You learn a lot about the foundations of what makes up a plant, down to it's cell. Really cool stuff.

This book is an excellent introduction to botony. I really had no idea how complex the biology of plants actually is. This book was very interesting and the author kept his discourse at a level understandable to the interested amateur. Highly recommended.

A lot of information that is useful inside and outside the house! Easy to understand without getting too scientific.

Bought this after reading the legion of 5 star reviews on amazon and Goodreads.I'll be honest, it is not bad, and some of the praise is deserved, but if you're a casual gardener like me trying to get a basic understanding of the science of plants, this is going to be very dense and dry. It took me 4 months to make it 1/3 of the way through this book, and by that time I just had to put it back on the bookshelf. I'm a fairly active reader and typically make it through a 400-500 page book every two weeks, but this was a slog.Why for me? Well:1) The author can take a lot of words to express simple concepts, and often uses more complicated words than necessary. Think long, dry pages of dense text with only an occasional tidbit of interesting information. There are a decent bit of pictures and diagrams, but many of these are useless without having a firm grasp of the text.2) The author will mention a scientific word or or explain a concept once, and from then on will assume you have a 100% understanding of the mentioned word or concept for the rest of the book. This forces you to backtrack A LOT to reference earlier material, which slows the pace of reading significantly.3) He very rarely ties the scientific information back to the practical world in a manner that a gardener can use. I'm not saying he never does, but it happens so in-often that I think the title is a bit misleading.I would only buy this book if you really want to understand the science, and not if you are just trying get a basic understanding of how plants work.