Peonies

The item was received in a timely manner. The physical book was in very nice condition complete with jacket. The book is a compendium of available Peonies (Herbacious,Tree, and Intersectional). The organization of the material could be better and the book is now somewhat dated. Overall this is a good guide for starting a Peony collection.

great history- it was fun to discover that the company I buy my peonies from has been in the business for several generations. an extensive list of recommended cultivars. Unfortunately, the book is old enough that most have been replaced and are no longer available.

I gave this as a gift to my daughter who works at a botanical garden in Northern Virginia. Peonies is a new interest in the garden this year so she asked me to find her a book dealing with some of the nitty gritties of raising peonies. Finally settled on this book because it is referred to in so many places as 'The' book on the growing these flowers. She loves it!

I wish I had noticed the reviews that pointed out that the paperback version has black and white photos instead of color. It renders the photos useless. There is a wealth of other useful information, however, which redeems the book.

There are few books on peonies, and that is why Allan Rogers' excellent one is such a find. It is written from the perspective of a commercial grower of peonies, but also from the perspective of someone who fell in love with peonies as a child. After borrowing it from the library repeatedly to help me start my own peony collection, I wanted my own copy. The color photography is beautiful, and the information on growing and choosing peonies is excellent.

Just opened the paperback version of this and compared it to the Hardback version that I got from our local library. What a disappointment. It is the exact same version as the hardback book only the 2005 pictures of peonies are in black and white. While the information is wonderful I judge what and where I try in our wildlife reserve/park largely by the color. How can you tell what color these peonies are in black and white. Don't waste your money on this bomb. Shame on you Mr. Cheapo publisher!

Hard back book in great condition. Arrived on time. Everything one might want to know about Peonies; and I mean everything. Illustrated to me how to exactly plant the tubers; when to water; when to fertilize.

Looks like a great information book but...all the pictures are in black and white! Kind of hard to gave a flower book with black and white pictures!!!

I saw the book Peonies by Allan Rogers in its hardback edition (1996, ISBN 0-88192-317-6). It was indeed a good book. Since the original edition is now out of print, I have purchased the paperback edition (2004, ISBN 978-0-88192-662-0). Unfortunately, when preparing my order from Amazon UK, I did not notice that it is the black-and-white edition. When I received the book, I was shocked twice. Firstly that it is a black-and-white edition and secondly from the quality of reproductions. In fact, most of them are not black-and-white, but black-and-black. The bad quality of reproductions makes the book useless.

I agree with all the comments made previously regarding the invaluable text in this book but wanted to alert potential buyers that apart from the front cover there are only black and white photographs of peonies in the book that I purchased from the Amazon.co.uk website. A previous reviewer had talked about the wonderful colour plates so I assume that my purchase is a different edition to the one available in the US. I feel that this is a serious shortfall for such a topic and therefore limit my rating to only 2 stars and award it a buyer beware rating.

I was disappointed that the pictures were black and white which made the book look like a cheap copy.

I have been anxiously waiting the arrival of this book and when it came I was very disappointed. All the photos of the peonies in it are black & white. What a waste of paper. I'm considering sending it back.

Good introduction to peonies. Best feature is the list of cultivars and where to purchase them. There are few photos and the are in black & white