Tropical Plants and How to Love Them: Building a Relationship with Heat-Loving Plants When You Don't Live In The Tropics - Angel's Trumpets – ... – Gingers – Hibiscus – Canna Lilies and More!

Subtitled Building a Relationship with Heat-loving Plants When You Don’t Live in the Tropics, Marianne Willburn packs her book with lots of wows. It is written as a guide to love, but instead of humans, it’s plants. Exotic plants. Chapter titles explain the approach: The Summer-romance, The “Long-term Commitment,” “The Best Friend,” “The High Maintenance Partner” and “Friends with Benefits.” These are followed by sections on design and “Relationship Fatigue.” along with descriptions of about 30 plants. This well-written book is entertaining while enriching us with the skills necessary to keep our tropicals happy. She drops in occasional recipes using the plants (“Friends with Benefits”), such as ginger. Tropical Plants and How to Love Them is a great guide to successful, guilt-free relationships with the exotic plants in our landscape.

I was pleasantly surprised to find (after reading this book) that I could use many "tropical" plants in my Mid-Atlantic garden. Some were already familiar (petunias, impatiens and begonias). More new choices, and their usage and virtues, were nicely described.The author is an uber-organized explainer. She uses a unique and easily accessible way to categorize different plants according, roughly, to how much effort or commitment is required. The gardener is thus enabled to make choices among heat-loving (or cold-fearing) plants which fit his/her own appetite for challenges, or the lack thereof.Marianne Wilburn is a writer and gardener well-worth reading. Highly recommended.

This adds a whole new context for the tropical plants that you may want to try in temperate climates. I know that after reading Marianne's book we ordered gingers and taro plants that are now creating a little tropical zone as you exit the basement. She has given us thoughts about a raft of new plants to experiment with. In addition to the factual content her writing style is exceptional — making this book a worthy addition to anyone's bookshelf.

Marianne Willburn can help you choose the plants that will bring on the tropical wow factor, and with the least amount of effort. She's done all the homework for us, which is fabulous for a lazy gardener like me! Even if you live in a Zone 8, as I do, I'm sure you will find new plants to try. I'll be looking for a hardy Schefflera this spring!

The author manages to make learning about tropical plants fun while imparting tons of wisdom for a novice to tropical gardening. Love this book!

I like this book. It was detailed regarding plant care and yet short and to the point.

The author has a great sense of humor while providing a lot of practical advice on maintaining tropical plants- a topic hard to find in general.

I really had a tough time understanding this book. The way it’s structured is a bit haphazard to me. It’s written almost like a blog or diary. The text is chopped up into small sections, and there are numerous headings. It’s structured like the author is giving a presentation with bullet points. Majority of the headings start out with a verb such as “Have sturdy leaves and stems” or “Are plagued by pests indoors due to stressful conditions “. I went over the book several times, and I still don’t have a sense of the point of this book. The most useful part of the book (and most organized) starts on page 139. From pages139 to 193, tropical plants are each given a couple pages of useful information such as best growing conditions, pests, along with large, clear photos.If you are looking for a straightforward tropical plants gardening guide, this isn’t it. I believe it’s more of a book to see which tropical plant is best for you. I found the text organization too choppy.