Rating
“Fragrant Orchids” by Steven Frowine is the book of the decade for fragrance gardeners, and for tropical fragrance gardeners (like myself) it's the book of a lifetime. This is the first time I’ve seen a book on ornamental gardening and have literally wanted every plant in the book. There are orchids for almost every growing condition. The appendix alone is practically worth the price of the book. Here the orchids are listed by: Ease of Culture, Light Requirements, Nighttime Temperature Preferences, Intensity of Fragrance, Time of Fragrance, and Season of Bloom. These are the most intelligent and useful categories that I could imagine. Orchids are the gems of the plant world, and this book is a gem among orchid books.
The chocolate Oncidium “Sharry Baby” is one of the most popular orchids in the world – there are plenty more in this book – 18 pages just of Oncidiums. Altogether Frowine covers 110 varieties describing each fragrance in enthusiastic detail. In the past, fragrance has taken a back seat to color and size for plant breeders, but that’s rapidly changing. This groundbreaking book shows that you can have your cake and eat it too.