The third book I read, called The Container Gardener's Bible, lived up to it's name. Although the section on specific plants was not as good as the previous books, with pictures for maybe half the plants, the introduction was superb. The book started with a few pages on the history of container gardening and moved into some awesome, general advice for planting in a variety of situations. In part because of the history section, this was the first book I read where I felt like I was in the middle of a book while I was reading it. The first two immersed me so little that it was hard for me to sit back down and get into them, but not so with this book. And the general advice on creating arrangements was exactly what I had so hoped for from the previous book. Both the previous books talked about different styles of gardening (contemporary, rustic, formal, informal) but didn't give any advice on how to achieve those looks. This book gave great advice, with suggestions for general plant and pot shapes, as well as specific plant suggestions. The same thing was then done for specific locations (balconies, roofs, walls, entryways, etc) and for specific types of gardens (herb, vegetable, aromatic, fruit). The instructions for caring for plants were also exceptional, including a nice time line for caring for a garden throughout the year. Although the earlier books were better for initial plant selection, this is the only book I read that absolutely plan on buying to use as a reference during the actual process of planting and caring for my garden.

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