Michael Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs is without doubt one of the most comprehensive guides to trees and shrubs. Containing over 900 pages of beautifully described and illustrated plants this really is a first place to start when selecting trees and shrubs for the garden.The size of the book may be a little daunting at first, with the 951 pages, where do you start? To try and start on page one and read it all the way through is not really going to work.
I started by looking into several plant families I am already familiar with, first up was Aesculus. Many people will be familiar with the widely known horse chestnut but within this group are some wonderful species. At the end of last year I had bought an Aesculus indica, known as the Indian Horse Chestnut, so I wanted to see how my view on this plant compared to the authors. I was not disappointed although this is rare in North America (where Dirr hails from) he describes the magnificent specimens at Kew Gardens. Being familiar with these I am pleased he shares my opinion. Clearly such a large tree will not work in our own garden, but it is one I intend to keep small.
Exploring his selection of other Aesculus, I was drawn to Aesculus glabra var. nana, a delightful compact shrub I was not previously familiar with but one which may well find a home in our garden if I can find a source in the UK.
This book really does draw you in, flicking through and spotting interesting shrubs, which are described with lovely detail and multiple illustrations. The photography is superb and well over half the book is taken up by photos, both close up and from further back showing the detail and form of the trees and shrubs under consideration. Where trees have interesting autumn color this is described and also illustrated.
Michael Dirr is a horticulturist and a professor of horticulture at the University of Georgia, and the book is written with the North American garden in mind, however this does not preclude it from being an extremely useful addition to the British gardeners reference library. I can see myself and Mark referring to this regularly when looking for ideas or for checking the cultural requirements of potential new plants for our garden.
Published by Timber Press, Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs is available in all the usual shops.
