Point 1. I've never investigated a book like this before, so I have no basis for comparison. My star rating is (like all star ratings, of course) to be taken with a grain of salt.

Point 2. I could shelve this with other reference books, because I can't claim I read every single word. But goodness I did spend time with it, study it, read most words... so I'm going to count it as read.

Wow. I thought I picked it up at the library for the pretty pictures. But there really is a lot of wonderful information here. Most of us who buy flowers know to trim the stems on an angle - but I didn't know that woody stems should actually be split. Now I also know how to use florist's foam and chicken wire to support arrangements, and how to arrange a bouquet so it's sturdy enough to stand up by itself, and how to make both lovely traditional arrangements of all shapes and sizes and how to think outside the vase and do other nifty things with flowers, greens, and even berries, fruits, vegetables, and fabrics.

I strongly recommend this book (or an even better one, if you can find it) to every young family that ever buys flowers. In just a dozen grocery store bouquets you'll get enough more enjoyment & life to pay for the price of the book.

I also recommend this for people who want a family member to do the flowers for their wedding. Again, buying the flowers wholesale (perhaps from one of the sources listed in the back) would save money, and give your wedding a personal touch of love. There are five wedding themes explored, including a bouquet, boutonniere, pew end, and table piece for each.

It's not perfect. A bit more discussion of the color wheel would have been nice - after all the principle of complementary color is what makes the arrangement on the cover so effective. And some of the individual arrangements how-to sections were not quite detailed enough to be clear enough for me to do in my head (but if I'd practiced the Skills from the Skills chapter in the beginning, and had flowers in my hands, I'd probably manage).

But it's a big beautiful coffee-table book and marked as only $25!

Now I'm motivated to see what other books are under that call number in the library, to check out the competition.

Edit - There were several books. I chose [b:Simply Flowers|9514370|Simply Flowers|Barbara Milo Ohrbach|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1287093482s/9514370.jpg|14400179] because I liked the word 'simply' compared to some of the other, more encyclopedic, choices. Well, after getting that home and spending time with it, I found that I do indeed prefer [b:Fresh Flower Arranging|10336360|Fresh Flower Arranging|Mark Welford|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327992962s/10336360.jpg|15238974] and don't need to change a word of this review. Ohrbach's book is fine, and, for some people, maybe better - see more information in my review for that. ( )