Hortus Miscellaneous

Book excerpt: From the kinds of trees standing at Great Dixter to the 20 deadliest flowers to the best small garden animals according to the Indiana Department of Agriculture—gardening is a pursuit with no end of information to sift through. Where does botany start but with the naming and grouping of all flora? List making is in the gardener’s blood, and this volume of random facts, data, and wisdom, will excite the Latin-spouting garden geek as much as the arrival of the new Heronswood catalog. Some of the entries will be wholly practical, like the 15 ornamental plants that deer will not eat, and others will be decidedly impractical, such as the flower that adorns the grave of famed English gardener Gertrude Jekyll (bergenia).