Review by Alec & Val Scaresbrook

The Expert series of books covering the major topics in gardening are good value reference guides, so it's no wonder that they are best sellers. Written by Dr D G Hessayon, they are available as paperbacks, and more recently some of these have been redesigned as slim pocket books for easier use when gardening or choosing plants and products in the garden centre, where it's so easy to be dazzled by the selection and distracted from your purpose.

There are currently five titles in the Pocket series, all illustrated in colour:

The Pocket Tree & Shrub Expert is the one we turn to most often as a quick guide to the care of the commonest garden trees and shrubs (but excluding roses). It's a particularly useful aide-memoire for ultimate size, flowering times and pruning.

The Pocket Flower Expert similarly deals with a myriad of flowering gardening plants.