Sex in Your Garden

Basically, this book is a "how and why" book on plant reproduction spiced up with advertising's finest babe and hunk shots to illustrate general concepts. It does a fine job of portraying the plants in your garden as wild and raunchy, not to mention absolutely unscrupulous in the pursuit of their goals. The author, Angela Overy, is absolutely shameless in her presentation --although, for the record, she does not cross the line into pornography: The occasional bras advertisement, and a strategically placed lily on page 47, but nothing worse than what you might see between the covers of Cosmopolitan.

The book, by the way, is more an overview of propagation strategies than a detailed analysis of physiology. She does go through the naming of parts and the basics of sexual maturation in plants, but then veers off into the politics of inter-species cooperation. Namely, how plants blackmail, bribe, and proposition birds, bees, beetles, ants, slugs, and butterflies (to name a few) in order to ensure successful cross pollination.

This book covers quite a bit of ground in its own irreverent way. It's got some interesting pictures depicting the color perceptions of several common pollinators, some very interesting material on Plan B strategies for pollination, and whole lot of really fascinating trivia. The juxtaposition of perceptions about plants and human sexuality is definitely attention grabbing, but it's the captions, which range from frankly informative to ludicrously suggestive, that make this book worth the cover price.


Entertaining, Informative, Very Readable, and Quite Useful   June 7, 2001
Thomas L. Ogren (San Luis Obispo, CA United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I just got a copy of this book, Sex in Your Garden, and I have been pleasantly surprised. There is a huge amount of interesting factual material in it. It is a bit bold for some folks, no doubt, but it is all actually in good taste. I think that this book could be excellent as a way to introduce younger students to the whole idea of sex and plants, or plant sexuality if you will. This subject is one that needs to be understood much better than it is now. Unlike most botany texts on the subject, this one is in plain English and it is fun to read. Hard core plant scientists may object to its tone and some of the wording, but I don't think it was intended for them in the first place. I expect that this book would be a good tool for getting students from grade 7-12 interested in some basic botany. Actually though, it would be informative for all of us "grown ups" too. I'm the author of Allergy-Free Gardening, from Ten Speed Press, and am especially interested in plant sexuality as it relates to allergies. I'd have to say this book is much better than I expected and I that learned quite a bit from it myself. The drawings and photos are first rate too. All in all, Sex in Your Garden is a very useful, informative, fun book. I highly recommend it! Thomas Leo Ogren


fantastic!   February 18, 2000
Alexandra Miehlbradt (Zurich, Switzerland)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

This book is a riot! I never knew there was so much - and so varied - sex going on in a garden. I hated botany in school because it seemed boring. But reading this book was so much fun - it made learning interesting and downright hilarious. The pictures and illustrations are fantastic and funny too. I'm not even a gardener but I loved reading this. I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to have a some good clean/dirty fun and learn something to boot. It also makes a great gift - I gave it to several friends and they all thought it was fantastic too!


very amusing - a great gift   June 14, 1998
sandesg@aol.com (London)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

This is an amusingly written book with a catchy title. I much enjoyed the way the author writes tonge-in-cheek about plant reproduction and relating it, indirectly, to human. The illustrations and photographs are of high quality and add much to the effectiveness of the book. The content seems to me to be well researched and scientifically accurate but the treatment is light hearted. This would make an excellent gift for anyone interested in gardens and gardening.