The Gardener's Palette: The Ultimate Garden Plant Planner

This is a gardening guide with a gimmick. Each spiral-bound page contains four tiers of plant ""swatches'' (284 in all), with a profile and color drawing of each plant. The organization of the swatches is a bit confusing. The four tiers are set up according to plant height. The plants are then grouped by season of best growth and arranged in alphabetical order by Latin genus name. (Fortunately, there's an index by both popular and Latin name.) The information given about the plants is bare bones, considering the subtitle's boast, and one can't mix and match swatches with abandon because the profile of each plant is printed on the back of the illustration of the preceding plant in that row. But the book is a lot of fun, as the reader can thumb through the swatches, see how different plants look together and dream of a garden as lovely as the delicately rendered color illustrations. (February 20)