I’ve seen Ortho’s All About series for a few years now, and decided to purchase one of the guides to see how good they are. I bought All About Annuals by Ann Lovejoy and Leona Holdsworth Openshaw. This book is a slim 96 pages from title page to index, but it is surprisingly full of information. Most of the book is comprised of charts and the annual selection guide.

New gardeners would find this book to be very useful, especially if they don’t know their annuals. The selection guide has a clear photo, Latin name, pronunciation, Common name, growing habit, and care information for each annual. More experienced gardeners would probably still be able to get some use from the more exotic annuals in the guide, but would probably be more excited by the annual seed starting chart. Lists of annuals for special spots, annual bloom time, and annual size would be useful for any gardener who wants a quick, easy guide.

Even though this book is small and doesn’t include quite as many annuals as I’d hoped it would, it is clear, concise, and easy to use. Overall, I’d give it 3.5 out of 5 Sunflowers.