About the Book
This interactive 'Plant Selector, plant care and pruning guide' CD-ROM is a great resource, packed with useful information about plants. British made and visually strong, this plant finder CD-ROM is a powerful search tool and a pleasure to use regardless of plant knowledge or computing skills. The gardening software is in effect a large database in to which you can enter your search requirements such as flowering time or colour, month of interest, or your soil conditions, sun/shade, dry or moist. Viewing a selection of plants is speedily and effortless, and a boon to both amateur gardener and professional designer. At its heart is a database of 2,500 plants. There's no scrimping on supporting images either, as there are more than 7,000 stunning photographs to show the plants flowers, leaves, shape, size, and where relevant bark, berries and seasonal changes. The icon friendly gardening software allows you to manage your plant collection - once compiled the plant list is linked to the calendar function and show you which plants you have of interest in any month and also tell you which your plants should be pruned. The illustrated pruning advice informs you how.
This makes the CD-ROM a perfect plant care tool for planning a garden with all year colour interest. Find plants to attract wildlife, grasses to add texture and movement, plants to climb wall, plants for dry shady places, acid or alkaline lovers, autumn colour and berries, the multi choice seems endless. Head to the garden style and you are offered a choice of interactive designs, such as cottage or formal gardens. Position the mouse over the garden pictures and click on any of the plants to reveal details of their attributes. You will also find information on pests, diseases and weeds, and many garden articles. The CD has an extensive list of plants, with 120 alone being listed as of interest to butterflies. Quick and easy to use, it is as accessible as a book but offers so much more. The information on individual plants is superb, sometimes with four different illustrations and interesting information such as how the species' scientific name was derived and, if appropriate, culinary and medical uses. Be inspired by the beautiful illustrations and the articles on specialist topics from experts in their field, including Jenny Steel writing about butterflies and wildlife in general.
If you have children, poisonous plants can be excluded from your search or you can select wildlife-friendly plants. You can find out how to care for or prune every plant, which pests it maybe susceptible to, when it flowers or fruits and much more. Click on a word to reveal its horticultural terminology: Complete Gardens can be used as a plant finder, helping you via the associated website, to find a nursery or garden centre that stocks any plant that interests you. Complete Gardens will continue to grow and be updated, and additional CD's are being produced. Each of these will contain information about a further 500 plants. More specialist CDs will also be produced over time with information on wildflowers, grasses, roses, or clematis. For anyone with a computer, this can build up into a huge reference library of plants and gardening. This CD makes garden research and planning fast and fun and puts plant knowledge at your fingertips, saving hours of searching, providing plant care advice for each plant so you know what to do to have healthy plants that will thrive and look their best.
This interactive gardening CD-ROM can help you add value to your property by creating an attractive garden and save you wasting money by selecting out unsuitable plants. When it comes to buying new plants, it's easy to get a little nervous - particularly if you want to try something different. That's where the Complete gardens CD-ROM comes in. Full of plants that are ideal for the UK climate, this helpful garden planner is a perfect search tool.
Table of Contents:
(1) Gardening (2) House & Home (3) Nature (4) Computers (5) Design
About the Author :
Author Bio:- Design & Photographer Neil Bromhall Neil Bromhall is a wildlife cameraman/photographer and was awarded and Emmy for his time-lapse filming on David Attenborough's BBC 'Private Life of Plants' series. The sheer delight of revealing the beauty of plant design and strategy used by plants made a huge impression and inspired him to get a talented team together to create an easy to use interactive Gardening CD so that everyone can create beautiful gardens to enjoy and also to help our British wildlife. We want to include short wildlife sequences in future versions which will show the fascinating wildlife in our back yards. "I've travelled to many parts of the world" Bromhall says, "but I'm still intrigued by what I see in my garden and for many of us the garden is where we see nature in the flesh. A garden does provide a habitat for our British wildlife so our gardens are important. I think that more people would get involved in gardening if they had a bit of simple guidance. I think our interactive CD does provide this information". This first CD-ROM has taken two years in the making. Contributing Authors:- Paul Williams - Author. Awarded prestigious Garden Writers Guild Enthusiasts Book of the Year 2003' for his latest book Digging Deeper (Conran Octopus) Radio Broadcaster. Lecturer. Jenny Steel - Wildlife Gardening Specialist, Author & Lecturer.
Review :
BBC Gardeners' World Magazine This CD-ROM is a great resource, packed with useful information about plants. It claims to hold details on more than 2,500 different varieties, including growing tips. There's no scrimping on supporting images either, as there are more than 7,000 photographs stored on disc. This CD is a pleasure to use, as the sign-posting is clear. Head to the garden style and you are offered a choice of interactive designs, such as cottage gardens. Position the mouse over the garden pictures and click on any of the plants to reveal details of their attributes. You will also find information on pests, diseases and weeds, and many garden articles. Butterfly Conservation Society This CD-ROM well deserves its title 'complete'. It has very extensive lists of plants, with 220 alone being listed as of interest to butterflies. Quick and easy to use, it is as accessible as a book but offers so much more. You can use its database to sort plants according to soil type, sun/shade and dry/moist growing requirements. Viewing a selection of plants of a chosen colour is speedily and effortless, and a boon to both amateur gardener and professional designer. The information on individual plants is superb, sometimes with four different illustrations and interesting information such as how the species' scientific name was derived and, if appropriate, culinary and medical uses. A simple click reveals horticultural requirements: click again and there is the facility to build up lists of plants you have got or more importantly ones you want. Be inspired by the beautiful illustrations and the articles on specialist topics from experts in their field, including Jenny Steel writing about butterflies and wildlife in general. And bear in mind that an update is already in preparation. The Oxford Time. Complete Gardens contains a huge amount of information and details of 2,500 gardens plants. It is, in effect, a massive database of plants of all types, in to which you can enter your requirements such as flowering time or colour, winter interest, or your soil conditions. If you have children, poisonous plants can be excluded from your search or you can select wildlife-friendly plants. You can find out how to care for or prune every plant, which pests it maybe susceptible to, when it flowers or fruits and much more. Every plant has several high quality photographs to illustrate it. Different garden style such as formal or cottage can be viewed, with suggestions of species for that particular style. Plants that you are especially interested in can be added to a notepad list and a personalised schedule can be produced to remind you how and when to prune or mulch those you have selected. Finally Complete Gardens can be used as a plant finder, helping you via the associated website, to find a nursery or garden centre that stocks any plant that interests you. Complete gardens will continue to grow and be updated, and additional CD-ROM's are being produced at regular intervals. Each of these will contain information about a further 500 plants. More specialist CD's will also be produced over time with information on wildflowers, grasses, roses, or clematis. For anyone with a computer, this can build up into a huge reference library of plants and gardening. Complete Gardens is the perfect compliment to the gardening books already on our shelves," Glee report GTN what's New. CD puts plant knowledge at your fingertips 'The user-friendly interface is both colourful and informative and very easy to use regardless of plant and computing skills'. 'At its heart is a database of 2,500 plants supported by 7,000 pictures and a wealth of information how to choose them, site them, care for them, prune them and even, with the help of a hyperlink to the Complete Gardens Website, where to buy them. Each search result gives you a selection of pictures of the plant and a full-ish description. More information about plant attributes, planting,
