Northern Flower Gardening: Bedding Plants

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, Japan Foundation Fellow 1991-92, and the author of
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered:
Leo Kennedy’s Story.

This guide to growing annual flowers in cooler climates is practical and
well organized. It deserves the tributes earned by the author’s
earlier volume, Lois Hole’s Northern Vegetable Gardening—namely,
no-nonsense and user-friendly.

Hole reminds us that annual flowers are easy to grow, flexible, and
able to quickly transform dull areas with their color and beauty. With
an index (by flower name) for easy access to information, the guide
deals with 92 annuals. Favorites include African Daisy, alyssum, aster,
fuschia, geranium, marigold, nasturtium, snapdragon, strawflower, and
zinnia. (Did you know that your indoor geraniums will profit by an
outdoor summer holiday?)

The guide covers choosing which annuals to plant in which location
(wet, dry, windy, etc.), how to plant annuals (including starting seeds
indoors), when to plant (with a frost-free table for Canadian provinces
and a few northern states), and regular care.

The text is beautifully illustrated with hundreds of small colored
photographs. Northern Flower Gardening: Bedding Plants is a superior
handbook, one of the best I have seen.