Botany for Gardeners, Fourth Edition: An Introduction to the Science of Plants

I absolutely love how this book is written. It’s easy to understand, detailed, but not dumbed down. Very readable.

Great read for the gardening person who like lots of information.

This is a fun read for garden and plant nerds. Very handy reference tool.

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

Great book!

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.

Great book and easy to read. Not the best if you are looking for garden reference. If you are looking to understand botany and the science behind plants, then this is your book.

This is an excellent reference book! As a student in herbalism I have turned to this book many times.The book is includes illustrations and text that is straight forward.I also appreciate that this edition includes changes in nomenclature and taxonomy.I would recommend this book to anyone interested in plants, whether in a formal learning environment or as a hobbyist!

Very informative read

I am obsessed with this book! An absolute must have bible to help understand plants.

Bought as a gift.

The book is very dry/ boring. It only skims each topic so you dont really learn much of anything. Its more of a condensed intro to botany book, the terms are all very scientific so with no prior knowledge it makes it impossible to retain the information. i certainly would not recommend it to gardeners. Id like to add that i do have landscaping experience and have certificates in horticulture So the topics covered are not totally foreign to me. If youre looking to get a better understanding of how plants work i would recommend "reaching for the sun" by john king