RHS Roses: An Inspirational Guide to Choosing and Growing the Best Roses

very nice book well illustrated and with lots of growing advice - would recommend

If you love roses you’ll love this book.Inspiring.

The author is an expert in his field. The book covers all of the expected territory and is full of beautiful supporting photographs.

Gorgeous, informative book by a famous rose expert or rosarian, Michael Marriot. Love it.

I already have the RHS Encyclopaedia of Roses, also published by Dorling Kindersley, so I was interested to see how this new book would compare. The Encyclopaedia is by far the more comprehensive but the new book is somewhat better at the advisory aspects of planting with roses with introductory chapters covering choosing roses or planting them in difficult spots. That said, these sections probably look more impressive than similar parts of the Encyclopaedia because they are illustrated with good photographs and laid out in a more attractive rather than utilitarian style.Where this book falls down is that it lists about 200 different roses (photo plus a paragraph of information about best uses, size, etc.). The Encyclopaedia has almost 2,000. In fairness, some of the varieties in the Encyclopaedia have been superseded by better varieties in terms of health, etc but still the new book ignores many healthy, easy to grow roses. In my last garden I had 46 different varieties of roses, chosen with the help of the Encyclopaedia but the vast majority don’t appear in this book. Perhaps the difference is that encyclopaedia is aimed more at the enthusiast. I wonder if this new format is a sign of things to come – the Encyclopaedia hasn’t been re-issued for some time and I wonder if it ever will be.