I recently developed an, ahem, budding interest in orchids, but then after diving in head first I realized I know absolutely nothing about flowers in general. A lot of the orchid literature out there relies on contrasting with what you already know about flowers, and since I don’t know shit, it doesn’t quite work.
Plus I just really like to learn all I can about a subject.
What I’m looking for is a book that explains the parts of a flower, reproduction, touches on notable or interesting familes/genuses/species, maybe nutrient needs, and hopefully some history and anecdotes so as not to be too awful dry.
The problem is that when I search for books about flowers I get a million fiction books with Flower in the title and a million non-fiction books about crocheting flowers, flower arranging, marzipan flowers, etc.
Maybe you could try searching on “botany” or adding “botany” to your search on “flowers.” Also, look for books on gardening that specialize in flowering plants.
Oh, wow. That actually worked. The first page of results was irrelevant-- almost worse than what turned up from just searching ‘flowers’, and I almost gave up-- but I went ahead and clicked over to the 2nd page just for laughs and right there at the top was Flowers: How They Changed the World. If the description is accurate, it’s pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
Bill Cullina was the nursery manager at the nursery I work at before he moved on up to his current status as a great botanical author. He is an excellent writer, very clear, not at all dry. He’s great at demystifying complex terms, and has a good passionate heart in wanting to teach everyone how to grow the plants he loves. The joke here was that Bill “bleeds green”.
His brand new book Understanding Perennials promises to be a bellwether book on how to “think like a plant”, and understand how to best grow them. He’s also very generous with teaching how to propagate plants, so you can do it yourself.
Another fine book for basic botany is Botany for Gardeners by Brian Capon, great at distilling textbook botany for , well, like the title says.
I am an amateur orchid grower, having only bought plants. However, my best advice is to leave them the hell alone. That of course varies with species. The phaeleonopsis, how ever you spell it, are the easiest to grow.
I listened to an audio book a while back you might be interested in (if I can remember the name of the damn thing). If I remember correctly it was about orchid collecting, collectors, growing, growers, trade, uses so on and so on. The bloke traveled all over the world meeting some weird and wonderful people. He even went to Turkey to try orchid ice cream (named something like mastic) that you eat with a knife and fork. I found it a good education on orchids in easy to understand language.
I just cannot think what the damn book was called -gahh