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hardcover $34.95
Timber Press (or)
Paddyfield.com
Powells.com (USA)
More reviews by Bruce Dalbrack
Readers may purchase reviewed books from Paddyfield.com, Asia's online bookseller.North American readers may prefer to buy US editions from Powells.com.
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The Jade Garden: New and notable plants from Asia by Peter Wharton, Brent Hine, Douglas Justice
This is a nifty and highly recommended book for plant and garden enthusiasts wishing to expand their knowledge of Asian greenery. The three authors are curators from the Botanical Gardens at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and traveled widely in Asia -- mostly China and Korea and Japan -- to collect these unusual and/or notable species. Brent Hine covers perennials (making a selection of 40), Peter Wharton covers shrubs (50) and trees are covered by Douglas Justice (40).
The balance between unusual and notable species is not clarified -- which probably goes down as an oversight -- but the focus is always practical and informed. Descriptions of the plants usually receive several hundred words each and the authors seem determined to avoid skimming over things. This book is decisively about depth over breadth. By the way, most of the species are suitable for temperate regions -- as well as the Pacific Northwest of America this includes northerly parts of Europe and southerly parts of Australasia and Latin America. The book's audience should be much more than just American or Canadian.
The remaining quarter of the book is background. Essays on East Asia's flora and China's natural landscape work well, though if you prefer dipping in here and there, the indexing is helpful. References are also ample. Famous plant collectors from the last few centuries are also profiled, strengthening the human and historical touches to the book. The writers clearly feel for their work and the enthusiasm in their words is clearly detectable.
This isn't just pretty pictures, however: the authors discuss bioinvasiveness, plants (or other living species) introduced to new parts of the world that cause harm, despite expectations otherwise. Arguably, writing a book of recommended species that will survive elsewhere is not the best way to help this challenge. Nevertheless, I think the authors are serious in asking readers to be as alive as they are to "the threat of exotic plants becoming pests".
There is a special Asian connection as the book is dedicated to another Hong Kong export -- the Honourable David C Lam, who emigrated to Vancouver in the 1960s. After profiting in property he ploughed money back into charitable causes, including the Asian Garden at the Botanical Gardens where the authors work.
A small quibble. THE JADE GARDEN: NEW AND NOTABLE PLANTS FROM ASIA does not especially help the reader by disconnecting plant photographs from their descriptions. Adding to the confusion, images are bundled together without page numbers which leaves you scuttling between descriptions of plant and photographs. Presumably this arose from printing with a mix of gloss art paper (the pages with the photos) and matt art (the pages with writing) but that was a mistake, in my view.
However this hardly lessens a fascinating book that I envisage dipping into for years to come. The authors should consider writing much more.
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