Eileen Powell.The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Flowers from Seed to Bloom. Storey. 2004.

I love Powell's style of writing in this book. She discusses everything from collecting to seeds to growing the plants to harvesting next year's seeds. She includes recycled containers and setting up plant stands for growing seeds. Her explanations are clear and easy to understand. Therefore, this book can easily be used even by a total beginner.

The bulk of the book contains information on specific plant species followed by colored photographs of representative plants. Then she provides planting charts and a list of seed companies organized by State or Province (Canada). The plant species description includes information on germinating, transplanting, caring for the plants, propagating and suggests plant combinations or cautions about using the plant.

Recommendation

This book is very useable by even the newest gardener. It is arranged so things are easy to find. For example: If you know only the common name of a flower, you can look that up in the appendix and find the appropriate scientific name. If you garden with flowers, you need this book.

I've studied plant propagation in college using books intended for the professional horticulturist. In my humble opinion, this book is much easier to use and should be available at local garden nurseries or any store selling seeds. It was written for the home gardener yet could serve the professional as well.