Black Magic & Purple Passion: A Complete Guide To Dark Plants

Karen Platt

Editions

Review

The author of this book runs a nursery specialising in plants with dark foliage and flowers, and there is a great amount of very useful information in there pages including details of new varieties just released to the market.  This is the first of two books I recommend for gardeners of a ghoulish disposition, and I have been using them both very much in tandem.

The other title, Creating Contrast With Dark Plants ,  is the the glossier of the two, and while it too has a directory of these gothic gems, its strength lies in planting suggestions and associations to help us garden effectively with these tricky treasures which have to be carefully presented.

Obviously there is something about black flowers which grabs gardening girls.  There’s an interesting website set up by one Alice Day, mAlice (geddit?) -  www.gothic.net/~malice/index.html - which is well worth a browse. - review by Stewart Grimshaw