Amazon.com description: Product Description: Compiled by one of North America's finest botanic gardens -- the Missouri Botanical Garden -- in consultation with seven other great botanic gardens, here is the most complete and user-friendly guide to annual gardening ever devised, a unique compendium of the best advice available, usable in all parts of the United States and Canada, for flowers and foliage that are replanted each year.

The information assembled by this unprecedented collaboration is presented in five chapters:

I. Introduction: definitions, history, and botany; the basic gardening philosophies of the experts who have contributed to the book.

II. Plant Selector: more than two hundred glorious, full-color photos of annuals of every variety, with detailed captions describing size, coloration, and requirements...full descriptions of their cultivation and maintenance, including some dissenting information and opinions from the consultant gardeners...additional color illustrations of combinations and finished gardens, techniques particular to a specific plant, and its history in human affairs.

III. Design: the principles of designing an annual garden that is not only healthy and attractive but creative as well, with photographs and diagrams of successful examples, and a wealth of possible color and plant combinations.

IV. Techniques: how-to information illustrated with black-and-white, step-by-step photos in minute detail; the experts' explanations of how they keep their own annuals both beautiful and healthy using integrated pest-management procedures.

V. Special Conditions: new methods for growing annuals in extreme climates and in small spaces, and advice on cultivating specialty plants.

This volume also includes a complete glossary, carefully verified source lists, and full indexes.

The professional horticulturists at the great gardens of the United States and Canada are passionate about their endeavors -- studying every trend, refining every technique for making things grow and thrive. Now, for the first time, they have joined forces to share their love and expertise in a guide that no single individual or institution could have created. The American Garden Guides: Annual Gardening is the indispensable handbook that will help your annual garden prosper and grow.