Dry limestone based soils such as the Edwards Plateau area of Texas and other places in the southwest, provide a major challenge to gardening which is addessed in this book. In such areas many plants simply will not grow well. Trying to get them to do so is an exercise in frustration and general garden books can lead you far astray. This book is not about how to try to change your soil, high pH soils cannot be effectively acidified. The book is about plants, trees, shrubs and varieties that do well in dry calcarious soil conditions. It will save you a lot of time, money and frustration if you face these conditions. A great book, a gold mine of information.

This is the most practical, useful, and enjoyable book on gardening that someone in the Texas Hill Country could ever want! It's not as big or comprehensive as the Wasowskis' "Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region", but that's because it focuses on the challenges of gardening in these "difficult" (nice word!) soils that we live with. Ogden's observations and advice about dealing with our limestone and caliche, and his reality-based recommendations of plants to use and the ones to avoid, gave me hope, encouragement, and new ideas for making this corner of the world a more beautiful place! It's got some great color photos, too.

Garden Bulbs for the South is simply a great book. The vast majority of books on bulbs deal extensively with Tulips, Grape Hyacinths, Daffodils and other cold climate bulbs and only give cursory information about warm climate bulbs and the information often pertains to container gardening. Every northerner moving South is tempted to try growing cold climate bulbs. Reading this book is both a delight and a time and money saver. It will also assist you in trying a lot of bulbs that you might otherwise overlook. It has been one of the most read books in my gardening library.

My copy of Mr. Ogden's book is already dog-eared from use. Any gardener in the South who is interested in adding perennial bulbs to the garden must read this book. The information on every type of bulb, tuber or corm, including those of wild Southern heritage, is generous, well written and easy to understand. Garden Bulbs for the South is useful not only as a gardening reference but as a field classification manual when trying to identify that lily blooming at the old farmhouse down the road. After reading the chapter on rain lilies, I was finally able to determine what that tiny little lily growing wild in my front yard really is. Highly recommend.

From Sarah B. Duke Gardens' Flora newsletter:
"Ogden is a plantsman familiar with all the bulbous (and cormous and tuberous) plants that can be grown out-of-doors in the South. He imparts his erudition lightly and with a flair uncommon in garden books today.
This book is worth buying for its 30-page chapter on Crinum and Spider lilies alone, a subject never treated properly in the usual books on bulbs because these beauties can't be grown in the North... The author also discusses myriad species of Gladiolus, Hippeastrum, Iris, Lycoris, Trillium, and Zephyranthes, as well as numerous genera with only a single cultivated representative, such as Ipheion. In addition, there are nearly 200 colored photographs, most of them smaller than a playing card, that vary from fair to excellent."
Very useful to a new gardener: in addition to telling me about bulbs I'd never heard of (and then immediately noticed in all the older gardens nearby), Ogden makes variety-specific recommendation about which daffodils (not King Alfred!), tulips (very few), muscari, etc., are going to thrive i.e. multiply rather than fade away. Some bulbs need colder winters than they will find in my part of Eastern NC. I've already saved the price of the book by not buying flowers that won't be happy in my yard!

THIS BOOK HELP PEOPLE GET THAT CHANCE TO RECEIVED THAT SPECIAL GIFT THAT THEY RECEIVED IN HIGH SCHOOL THAT THEY ALWAY DREAM OF IN LIFE.

It's a great book with a lot of moonlore and he divides the book into chapters according to the type of area you live in: A Moonlit Border (for small moon gardens) The Forest Moon The Prairie Moon The Tropic Moon The Water Moon The Desert Moon The Mountain Moon

There's also a chapter on Winter Gragrances and Limestone and Other Illuminations

He suggests plants for each area that bloom at night.