Double Flowers (The Remarkable Story of Extra-Petalled Blooms)

As long as there are plants and gardens, there will be plant enthusiasts who will want to grow variations, rarities, and oddities, including double flowers. Double flowers are simply flowers with a greater than normal number of petals or petal-like structures. They can occur spontaneously in the wild or can be selected and bred by humans. This beautifully illustrated book, begun by bestselling garden writer Nicola Ferguson before her death in 2007 and completed by her friend, the writer and photographer Charles Quest-Ritson, celebrates some of the many thousands of double-flowered "new varieties" produced throughout history. It discusses how they have arisen; how they are constructed; how and where they will flourish; and the particular charms, advantages, and disadvantages of such varieties for gardeners, flower-arrangers, and pollinators alike.