The Creative Shrub Garden: Eye-Catching Combinations for Year-Round Interest

Am redoing my borders, and this book has lots of ideas for plant combinations. Room for notes too as not all the plants mentioned will grow in my area. Book is definitely worth getting if you are interested in shrubs.

Described accurately and arrived promptly.

I love this book! I wanted to design a garden border for my backyard, had very little knowledge of shrubs and had no idea where to start. This book gave me all the info I needed in order to decide which plants/shrubs to use based on my climate and design needs. It shows many examples of what shrub combinations go together for various styles. I really like the plant directory with lots of info and pictures on all the shrubs mentioned in the book.

interesting and informative. Would love to have seen more of his recommendations played out in actual gardens but it's a good reference book on shrubs -- not exhaustive, but a nice start for beginning gardeners.

it did meet my expectations, I liked the fact that the shrubs were identified most of the time. Would appreciate more ID of all that are shown but all in all it was a good book.

This is a beautiful book with excellent info on how to care for a particular shrub.

I really like this book, a great find. I keep it where I can keep picking it up for reference on how to make my yard better. Full of goodideas and suggestions. Beautiful photos help even more.

As a garden designer, I often create shrub-only beds and borders for my clients. Naturally this title caught my eye, anticipating 'creative shrub garden' ideas. Not so, merely inclusion of shrubs in normal, mixed gardening environments. Nothing special or new here.Incomplete information: The author has written this book for his UK audience, not US. No Zone information, and many of his suggested planting combinations won't work in our specific climates.I will be returning this book to Amazon.

Really useful for designing a shrub border or choosing shrubs for a mixed garden. Andy McIndoe guides you through different ways of choosing and suggests planting combinations for different styles of garden and for creating different moods, for example you might want to create a quiet atmosphere for reflection and quiet relaxation, or you might want a lively, vibrant garden as a backdrop for socialising. His planting combinations are gorgeous, and there's a directory of a huge, but well-chosen range of shrubs with ideas for how to use them. It's been really useful in planning my new garden and giving me a list of plants that will look good together, work with the aspect, soil and size of my garden and help create the kind of atmosphere I want. It covers a lot of information but is not over long and is well-written enough to make it easy to read from cover to cover.My only small criticisms are: it's very clearly aimed at both US and UK readers - for example he uses the word fall rather than autumn throughout, along with other Americanisms, but American readers might be unhappy with the lack of information on US hardiness zones (though this info is easily available online). I also found a few of the photos a bit small and unclear, though that is being picky as there are lots of other lovely photos. Still a 5 star book for me.

This is a fantastic book. Full of colour pictures, it gives ideas of what shrubs to use together to create different styles, and what plants and bulbs to use to set them off. There’s also a good, though not exhaustive, alphabetical listing with photos in the final section, outlining characteristic, size, season and colour, and good companion planting For many shrubs. A truly inspiring and informative book.

The Creative Shrub Garden is a brilliant book for those keen to do more in the garden without necessarily being flower based. Don't get me wrong, I love flowers, I just love the maintenance-free nature of shrubs more. I am not the most proficient flower deadheader, it's true.I appreciate the insight into layering and colour matching/contrasting this book offers. The plant directory is terrific as shrubs are often over looked with guides on trees and flowers easy to source.All in all, this book ticked all the boxes for me and will be a valuable reference book in future.

I love this book. Full of ideas and lots of information for even an experienced gardener. However, a tiny niggle. Autumn is referred to throughout as "fall" yet the author is English. I expect it was done to appeal to the American market but it felt false and odd.

I was so looking forward to reading this book by such an expert as I think shrubs are underused and underrated. But I didn't find much inspiration. The best photo is on the cover and it's such a pity there aren't many more like this from real gardens showing such combinations. The shrub photos generally give no idea of habit, size and form nor how they would sit with the suggested partners. But a good book if you just want some basic ideas or an introduction to shrubs.