My local bookstore stocks a lot of British books that promote roses and other flowering shrubs over almost everything else. I was pleasantly surprised to find 'Ornamental Foliage Plants for your Garden' on the shelves last night, and promptly bought it.

Pluses:
- Australian author (Denise Craig, you are a national treasure) and Australian publisher (New Holland Press)
- great coverage : 400 pages, 1500 plants, full-colour photos
- coverage of *many* tropical plants that I dont see in other books - philodendron, broms, cordyline, palms, cycads, dieffenbachia, draecaena
- lots of Aussie natives
- very authoritative and well-written
- $30 is a steal for a hardcover, full-colour book with this much gorgeous content

Minuses:
- no coverage of Heliconia that I could find, and only one Alpinia
- the index appears to have been written for someone with a magnifying glass

The store owner said that he can only get these books when the publishers release them to the warehouse with slight imperfections (usually a torn jacket), and that he doesnt feel Rocky people are prepared to pay full price for tropical gardening books. Sadly, I have to agree - I've leafed through a couple, seen the price and put it back on the shelf in many cases. $100 is just too much cash to part with when there are so many other bills to pay :(

You may be better served in the smaller chains like 'QBD' : I am surprised by some of the treasures which turn up in these stores. I'm sure you are also faimilar with the 'bargain basement' bookstores which dot the area near the Queen St mall in Brissie - the books are often very out-of-date for things like computing, but a good gardening text never goes out of fashion, IMO.

Cheers,

Artie

$70 - ouch ! As I said in my initial post, most of us arent prepared to shell out that kind of money unless we feel that the book is something very special indeed. I can only suggest that you keep an eye out for the sales in your area - I find that places like Big W often have some suprises amongst the usual array of Jamie Drury titles :)

Cheers,

Artie