[.uk] Cacti and Succulents (101 Essential Tips) (ISBN 0756606136)

Book Description:
Prepare to prune and propagate to cacti perfection with this fantastic pocket-sized guide. One hundred and one nuggets of practical information take you stage-by-stage towards a broad understanding of the care of succulents and their spiky partners.

A good supplementary reference:
This book is an excellent companion to "Complete Book of Cacti and Succulents" by the same author (Terry Hewitt). "101 Essential Tips" has some information not included in the larger work. This reviewer recommends buying both books and consults both books on a regular basis. This book is adequate on it's own, though. If one has a very limited budget, this would be the book to buy. Reading this book will likely whet one's appetite for Hewitt's "Complete Book", but this book will get one started and might be all the book that one will ever really need. It contains every bit of basic information necessary to successfully grow these plants. The format, of separately titled and illustrated "tips", also makes the book a very easy read. One can easily flip to some specific tip and never have to read the whole book end-to-end. What it's not: This is not a book for identifying a just-purchased, unlabelled cactus. It's also not a coffee-table picture book (though it does have informative and useful photos) and it does not attempt to _thoroughly_ cover any aspect of cactus cultivation. It is a small, inexpensive quick-reference with answers to common questions and solutions to common problems that arise when growing cactus. The photographs that it has are fully adequate for illustrating the techniques described. The book shows implicitly, due to its small size and price, that growing cactus is neither difficult nor expensive. This book is a very good value and makes a great starting book for those with a limited budget.

A Waste:
This book is so cursory and high-level that I got nothing out of it. For example, there's an entry on spider mite damage to cacti. It says to combat this use a predatory mite. It fails to tell me which mites are predatory, where I might find them, how to use them, etc. I don't know the purpose of this book. It's so short, vague, and imprecise that some one new to cacti won't find it useful. And it's so vacuous that some one who knows cacti will read it and say "Duh." And it's too little to be a good coffee-table book....

Great reference book for the a beginner:
This is an excellent reference guide for those with little or no experience with cacti and succulents. If you are visually-oriented, you will apprecicate the vivid and colorful photos. This is a very simple and easy book to read....I would consider it to be a nice starter book.

A GOOD BOOK TO HAVE AROUND:
I was glad I added this one to my collection. It is a great book for beginners and it is also a good book to prove you can teach an old dog new tricks. I have been collecting cacti for years (indoor) and though I have gain some modest knowledge of the subject, I did find questions addressed in this book that I simply did not know. Each book on the subject has helped me add to my knowledge and this one is included in that group. I would particuarly recommend this one to the beginning grower/collector. It is a job well done.

A Well Presented Little Book:
The title of the book says it all really. The book gives both the beginner and the more accomplished cacti hobbyist one hundred and one ways to keep your cacti looking healthy and if they are healthy they will flower for you. Everything from when to water, what to feed them on, whether certain genus like sun or shade. How warm should they be kept in winter. The list is endless. Well no it isn't really it is one hundred and one tips long, but that is more than enough to keep both you and your cacti happy. Terry Hewitt has written a number of cacti books and been involved in the publication of many others. He has a vast knowledge to impart to the interested reader.