Grasses Books

The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes

Rick Darke

Amazon Price: $37.77 List Price: $59.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Timber Press, Incorporated Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $32.40

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Interesting and encyclopedic 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful.

In depth, beautifully photographed and written by someone who obviously cares a great deal about the subject. Great for reference -- also great just to peruse.

From a designer's point of view 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This is an awesome book. I own another of Rick Darke's grass books, the Timber Press pocket guide, which is also excellent as an overall reference. This one, though, goes in to a depth I didn't know I needed until I saw it! I find I am reading every page, after having skimmed every beautiful photo. I particularly admire the wisdom behind the design theory (see the chapter on design)--a true artist's understanding of color, form and line. Why use grasses in a garden design? And how to do so? The topic is eloquently covered. So well in fact that I have had a bit of a paradigm shift.

In addition to Darke's exquisite artistic sense, his horticultural, encyclopedic knowledge of all these plants is very appreciated. I can trust what he tells me. The only thing missing (and missing from almost all--dare I say ALL--ornamental grasses books) is the width size for grasses listed. One needs to try to extrapolate a probable width from the height which IS given for every plant. Granted this piece of info must be hard for authors as there may be two or even three width sizes for grasses--the basal clump in spring, the foliage fully expanded in summer, and tip-to-tip spread IN BLOOM in fall, for example. And there is the question of time as well: e.g. a 3-year size vs. a 10-year size. Still, a gardener needs to know these things: what sort of space to give a grass for its best look to be achieved.

The above is a small point for an overall excellent book. It covers ornamental grasses from every angle, from a man very experienced in the genre.

Editorial Review:

In this new book noted grass expert and advocate Rick Darke addresses both the aesthetic qualities of grasses in private gardens and the opportunities and challenges of using them in wild and constructed public landscapes. All the true grasses, sedges, rushes, restios, and cattails that possess ornamental merit or that can contribute to ecological plantings are described, and practical matters of propagation, growth, and maintenance are also covered. More than 1000 stunning photographs show details of individual plants and hundreds of gardens and landscapes in which grasses play a prominent part. This worthy successor to The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses is a new type of design reference that sets a standard for inspired, sustainable use of grasses.

Grasses: Versatile Partners for Uncommon Garden Design

Nancy J. Ondra

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Storey Publishing, LLC Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $9.48

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From spring green to winter gold, the drama of grasses is nonstop. There are the striking yellow-and-green ostrich plumes of Zebra Grass. The fine-textured leaves of Blue Oat Grass. Flame Grass's dazzling red-orange leaves, Fountain Grass's coppery brushes, the rich brown nuggets of Northern Sea Oats, the feathery purple haze of Switch Grass.

Whether on their own or as backdrops for colorful garden flowers, ornamental grasses are admired for their color, form, movement, and texture. They also aid in erosion control, soil stabilization, and water retention, making them great conservation tools for gardeners in all hardiness zones. Although grasses are widely available at garden centers all over North America, few books advise the gardener on how to use them in the garden - and especially how to combine them with perennials and other plants. GRASSES features plans and practical advice for more than 24 unique gardens. It's complete with an identification and growing guide to the plants, and it features more than 150 full-color photographs, illustrations, and landscape plans.

Grasses: An Identification Guide (Sponsored by the Roger Tory Peterson Institute)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Fantastic Book 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 10 people found this review helpful.

I am a former student of Mrs. Brown, from her Botany class at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. This guide is outstanding, and her original illustrations are genuine. As of the time of the original publication, there was absolutely nothing at all to guide students to identify grasses. Other guides copied the concept, but Lauren's is still the pioneer in this field.

Best Book 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I think this book is the best book on grass identification for most of us. You will actually be able to identify most of the grasses you run into. It is not a treatise on grass ecology.

Grasses 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I am dissapointed that it did not tell me the region that this book covered before I purchased it.

How did this get published?! 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a very very poor field guide. The line drawings are totally inadequate and usually only show a small portion of the plant. Habit, for example, is almost never illustrated, while the drawings of the inflorescences are generally not detailed enough to help with identification save for the most distinctive grasses. For that matter, much of the book is devoted to plants that are not grasses, while many common true grasses (millet, sorghum, etc.) are not treated at all. Sedges, rushes, horsetails, and other non-grasses are all mixed in a completely illogical fashion, which is quite likely to do more harm than good to a beginner or novice. The descriptions generally include less than a full sentance of information. As a botanist working for the Smithsonian I cannot recommend this book to naturalists at any level of experience. Grasses are a difficult group to identify, but this book is very unlikely to help in that respect for most grasses that one would encounter. A general field guide like Gleason and Cronquist's "Manual of Vascular Plants of the Northeastern United States" is a much better bet to correctly and effectively ID grasses. Don't buy this book.

Editorial Review:

How to identify 135 of the most common species of North American grasses, sedges, and rushes, with their economic and ecological importance.

Field Guide to the Grasses, Sedges, and Rushes of the Northern United States

Edward Knobel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Limited and Incomplete 2 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I am a professional ecologist and spend at least 100 days a year in the field characterizing vegetation communities and plant species. It is difficult to tell which part of the country this book would be best suited for, as it would be considered incomplete in the areas I have used it in (Northern and Southern Rockies, Black Hills, Intermountain West and Northern Great Plains). I found it's treatment of rushes especially wanting. This book has made it to the field with me only a few times and was seldom used then. The most redeeming quality of this book is it's size, which can easily fit into a back pocket, but when it's taken out you will probably not be able to key the more difficult and uncommon graminiods found in the U.S.

Editorial Review:

With its clear descriptions and accurate drawings, this easy-to-carry little volume will allow you to differentiate over 370 of the most common species: timothy, rye, foxtail, fescue, bluegrass, many more. Key. 500 illustrations. Updated nomenclature by Mildred F. Faust.

How To Identify Grasses: And Grasslike Plants

H.D. Harrington

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

How to Identify Grasses & Grasslike Plants 5 out of 5 stars.
20 of 20 people found this review helpful.

This book is practical and systematic. The topic is difficult, at best, and the author gives all the tools and understanding needed to build up your skills. As a consultant that works with native plant materials, I have found this book to be a useful field reference in separating out invasive species.

Best glossary 2 out of 5 stars.
10 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Not especially useful for beginner grass identification because concentrates on structural detail rather than overall appearance of growth. However, I recommend it for its excellent illustrated glossary.

A lot of information in nearly pocket size book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I finally bought a copy of this book for myself after having to borrow it from my plant friends and professors. They would not permit it out of their sight! Anyway it is a very good start to getting accustomed to grasses. They can be quite challenging to identify but this book is very helpful. It is pretty basic, to the point and recommended. It may be a bit challenging for a newbie, but really there is no easy way to learn plant terminology. This one is a good ice breaker!

Editorial Review:

There is no easy was to identify grasses. And no one understood this better than H.D. Harrington, who observed thousands of students struggle and learn. His clear, concise, and well-organized guide will continue to be a basic and essential text for use in the classroom or in the field. The book contains over 500 drawings and an illustrated glossary.

The Book of Bamboo: A Comprehensive Guide to This Remarkable Plant, Its Uses, and Its History

David Farrelly

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Bamboo’s amazing versatility, strength, and beauty have given it a larger role in human culture than any other plant. Both sustainable and plentiful, it has been used for millennia to make objects ranging from clothing and housing to more exotic luxuries like phonograph needles and children’s toys, to name but a few.
This acclaimed sourcebook—part history, part illustrated catalog, part cultivation guide—details the myriad uses of bamboo, along with an immense bounty of information and lore on how to grow, maintain, and harvest this extraordinary plant; how to use it in craft and construction projects, including floors, fences, papers, and play equipment; and bamboo’s place in the literary, visual, and musical arts. An encyclopedic roster of more than 1,200 bamboo species is a book in itself, as is author David Farrelly’s A-to-Z catalog of artifacts made from bamboo: acupuncture needles, blowguns, bridges, kites, ships, violins, windmills, and a thousand other things.
Strong, flexible, and beautiful in both its natural and finished states, bamboo is an abundant resource that could beneficially replace many less sustainable materials currently in use, and continue to transform our culture in the process.

Hardy Bamboos: Taming the Dragon

Paul Whittaker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Bamboos are extraordinary in their ability to transform a garden, adapt to inhospitable surroundings, survive with little care and, most of all, surprise and delight the people who view them. Too long the exclusive pleasure of those with tropical and subtropical gardens, this hand-picked selection allows gardeners in cooler climes to experience the wonder and infinite variety of these magical plants. Besieged by winter wet, summer drought and bitter, drying winds, Paul Whittaker's garden has been a rigorous testing ground. In the first part of the book his compelling anecdotes, experiences and case histories illuminate how bamboos perform in different places, draw attention to their idiosyncratic nature, and highlight their geographical origins. A further section describes the bamboo's unique physical structure and growing habits. These fascinating insights give you the knowledge you need to choose the right bamboo for your site and grow it successfully. At the heart of the book are detailed plant descriptions that join with striking photographs and evocative illustrations to highlight each plant's characteristics. Using bamboos to best effect in the garden, propagation, aftercare and their resilience to pests and diseases complete the guidance for gardeners. The distillation of years of hands-on growing experience, this is the ultimate bamboo reference book for cool-climate gardeners. Enthusiasts will delight in the variety of new possibilities for their collection and gardeners everywhere will be captivated by the charm bamboos bring to countless different garden situations.

Grasses of the Texas Hill Country: A Field Guide (Louise Lindsey Merrick Natural Environment Series)

Brian Loflin, Shirley Loflin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Has errors that need correcting 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I found many errors, at least 8 that were very apparent. Not knowing much about grasses I did not know if the other facts in the book were correct since the mistakes were obvious, even to me. It must have not been proof read. Some pages did not have a full picture of the plant, only the top. The pictures that were there were good.

Editorial Review:

This photographic guide to grasses gives all who have been frustrated trying to identify these difficult plants an easy-to-use, visually precise, and information-packed field guide to seventy-seven native and introduced species that grow in the Texas Hill Country and beyond. With a blade of grass in hand, open this book and find: handy thumb guides to seed head type, the most visible distinguishing characteristic to begin identification; color photographs of stands of grasses and detailed close-ups; concise information about economic uses, habitat, range, and flowering season; and quick-reference icons for native status, toxicity, growing season, and grazing response.

Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses (Timber Press Pocket Guides)

Rick Darke

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Timber Press, Incorporated Amazon Marketplace: 52 new & used starting at $6.49

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Handy illustrated guide to all kinds of grasses for gardener 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

TIMBER PRESS POCKET GUIDE TO ORNAMENTAL GRASSES by Rick Darke. Timber Press, 133 S.W. Second Ave. - Site 450, Portland, OR 97204-3527. 2004. 226 pp. $19.95 flexible hardcover, ISBN 0-88192-653-1. color photographs, glossary, index.
Over 330 bright, sharp color photographs illustrate as many different kinds of ornamental grasses. The grasses are cataloged alphabetically. But 32 categories preceding the encyclopedic catalog group the hundreds of kinds according to different characteristics. A few of these are clumping ornamental grasses, cool-season ornamental grasses, ornamental grasses for cut flowers, ornamental grasses for dry sites (and woodlands, dry shade, fragrance, etc.), and ornamental grasses for movement in breezes. Ornamental grasses are becoming increasing popular with today's gardeners because of their textures, variety, and adaptability. And because, as the numerous photographs show, they make for attractive gardens and landscapes that do not appear overly manicured. Darke is a landscape design consultant who has won awards in the field. His "Pocket Guide" is a ideal reference for anyone interested in ornamental grasses, particularly gardeners at all levels.

Editorial Review:

An accessible and comprehensive reference to the wide range of striking grasses available to gardeners, this pocket guide features an assortment of plants with varied textures, forms, sizes, and flowering times. In a handy, compact format, new varieties are presented, as well as plant descriptions and cultivation information. More than 500 species and cultivars are covered, illustrated with over 300 color photographs.

The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses: Sedges, Rushes, Restios, Cat-Tails and Selected Bamboos

Rick Darke

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Much has changed in the role and use of ornamental grasses over the past 100 years. Whereas turn-of-the-century gardeners had perhaps a dozen perennial grasses to choose from, today's gardeners have hundreds. Ornamental grasses now embody a huge array of textures, forms, sizes, colors, flowering times, and cultural adaptations. The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses is intended for gardeners in a wide range of situations and climates, and draws from the experience and creativity of great gardens and gardeners around the world. It begins with an exploration of the unique aesthetics and appeal of ornamental grasses before moving on to a review of the families of grasses and a survey of grasses in their native habitats. Gardeners usually speak of "ornamental grasses" in the broad sense, including not only the true grasses but also related families of grass-like plants. Following this tradition, the book provides a detailed treatment of perennial grasses, rushes, and cattails, as well as selected bamboos. Written by horticulturist Rick Darke, this encyclopedia will be invaluable to nursery professionals, landscapers, and home gardeners.