I treasure my older gardening books too for the notes...or flower seed lists or receipts found inside. I even enjoy my own marginal notes in books I've had for 20-30 years...LOL I've an old Taylor's Encyclopedia of Gardening which was my first "serious" gardenbook purchase in about 1970...every plant I grew for the next 30 years is marked in there, plus those I wanted someday (a much longer list). Same thing with tropical plant books, cookbooks. I can trace my learning curves, successes and failures through the years. Andie, I'll bet you'd like a book by Daniel Pool, "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew", all about 19th century England. Covers all those things you read about in old novels like Presentation at Court, rules of Precedence of Bishops, Barristers & Baronets, The Country House Visit, Vermin and Poachers and Keepers. In fact after glancing through it just now, I see lots of exclamation points, underlinings...a sure sign that I found lots I didn't know ...nust reread. josh

I have been thinking about your inquire for a couple days Pablo, and have a few thoughts to throw out in the ethers. These are my opinions and observations, for I have not read the book you have spoken of. From all I have learned the best way to deal with soil borne diseases is to have a healthy soil. A healthy soil with adequate organic matter as well as a healthy microbe population with plenty of carbon/nitrogen (food/fuel) to maintain said "herd" balance. Since the microbe herd feeds on all organic matter, any disease organisms will be attacked and fed upon like everything else. In this way any disease is kept in check/minimized to my understanding. The question then becomes what happens when a gardener injects/sprays a booming population of new organisms incorporated within ACT into said soil or on plants? IMO, the balance is completely wiped out through this addition of microbes. Until the balance is again reached, one that the soil can sustain without added amendments there will be chaos in said soil. All carbon/nitrogen will be immediately consumed by this migration of new tenants, thus there will be now a need for additional organic matter to maintain this new level of microbes. Any soil borne disease is given a "get outta jail free card" until such time as they are again seen as food for consumption. This has been my one issue with ACT, and I have yet to see any answer to the question; "How is this massive addition of micro-organisms good for the soil unless more organic matter is added as well"? Air borne diseases are a different monster; and as I have said I deal with them for the most part with milk. For my observations ACT is very good for my plants, they grow larger and healthy when mixed with the proper amendments. Humic and Folic acids aid in dealing with insects and aid in the manufacture of nutritional food; and I have a "fire breathing dragon" to covenant with all other mammals that make the mistake of thinking I grow vegetables for them as well. With well-cured compost my garden grows well. My neighbors testify with their complains of diseases/pests found here; I have no such problem with them Blutranes

The newest and best Hoya book is The Genus Hoya from Botanova Press. You have to buy right from the Botanova website and have the book shipped from Sweden. Hoya books are not numerous and for the most part they are fairly expensive. The older books have far too many misnamed plants to be useful and they can cause confusion by matching the wrong photos with the plant descriptions etc. I have quite a few Hoya books and The Genus Hoya is probably the best if you are looking for a general Hoya book. There are more scientific or in-depth Hoya publications but they are full of botanic terminology and are generally only for the very serious grower. Now having said all that everything you will find in most books is available on the web for free. Sites like Hoyor.net and GrowingHoyas.com, or My Hoyas will give you all the info you will find in those expensive books. Often times the websites have more photos, photos of flower parts and pollinia etc. which you will not find in the books. Check out Rainbow Gardens Books as well but generally the Kloppenburg books seem to be not worth the price. The Hoyas of Australia and The Hoyas of North Eastern New Guinea are much more scientific in scope and are not easy reading. There are botanical drawings in black ink and many botanical terms so they are not good for beginners. If you ever do want to dive into the world of botanical publications I would highly recommend Botanical Latin by William T Stearn as a fantastic book to help you learn botanical terminology and about the meanings of all those Latin and Greek names you see used in Botany. Mike Here is a link that might be useful: The Genus Hoya

Graham Stuart Thomas is a well-known English author who wrote an excellent two volume reference, buttressed by additional books on roses, groundcovers, etc. Not a first pick, because of the English author and the lack of illustrations, but the two-volume set is fairly all-inclusive, so that when you finally have something you can look it up and know what you have. If you see them on sale anywhere they are worth picking up. For shrubs, I agree that Dirr is the man. Ignore him at your peril, but if you have his book, at least you will have been warned. I took him with a grain of salt regarding the eventual height of Allegheny viburnums, but he was absolutely right. He was right about pruning, too. I have an older set of two reference books on flowers that I especially love because it gives an excellent hand-drawn illustration of each, a good description of habitat, and a history of where each plant was first discovered, but it is temporarily packed away and I can't remember the name...maybe someone else will know. It may be out of print, but it should not be if it is.