Do you dream of transforming your back garden into a romantic retreat? Would you like to make a modern-day Utopia on your balcony? Is your ideal outdoor space a minimalist design with easy-to-care-for plants or a family garden with room to grow culinary herbs? Whatever your desire, the Garden Design Bible has a plan that you can adapt to your own space. Choose from 40 off-the-peg designs, or mix and match elements from several to create your ideal garden. Each of the designs is fully illustrated and has a comprehensive plant list and planting diagram. With a huge range of plants, styles and uses, this inspirational yet practical book is the next best thing to hiring a gardener!

Humphry Repton (1752-1818) ambitiously styled himself Capability Brown's successor: the century's next great improver of landed property. With his rare combination of skills - he was a talented topographical sketcher with a unique ability to judge the shifting needs of his patrons - over thirty years Repton amassed an incredible four hundred commissions; his famous Red Books, illustrated to help clients visualise the potential of their properties, did much to encourage the appreciation of landscape aesthetics, especially among the rising middle classes. With colourful illustrations and detailed site investigations, this book traces Repton's landscape designs from Picturesque wildernesses like Blaise Castle to the progressive Gardenesque style of Endsleigh in Devon. It is both a perfect visitor's guide to the gardens and an introduction to the theory of Repton's work.

Planting design is the selection and use of plants to achieve a designer's objectives. There are now many new and interesting planting ideas and fashions, but municipal planting in particular and some gardens as well, can be pretty dire through lack of careful planting design. What is needed for all garden designers - who may well have come to design via a deep interest in plants - is an understanding of the basics of this vitally important design discipline: designs are three-dimensional, to be walked in and round, and viewed from all sides; designs will change over time; plants live and die and need to be tended for maximum effect; there is a huge choice of plants, a working knowledge of which takes experience. There are many pitfalls to be met in planting, therefore, which can be largely avoided by getting the basics of planting design right. This book will help the designer to build a solid foundation for their future success and experience

Japanese Garden Design explains the theory, history, and intricacies of Japanese gardening through gorgeous photographs and expert commentary. The creation of a Japanese garden combines respect for nature with adherence to simple principles of aesthetics and structure. In Japanese Garden Design landscape architect Marc Peter Keane presents the history and development of the classical metaphors that underlie all Japanese gardens in this. Keane describes the influences of Confucian, Shinto and Buddhist principles that have linked poetry and philosophy to the tangible metaphor of the garden in Japanese culture. Creative inspiration is found in the prehistoric origin of Japanese concepts of nature; the gardens of Heian aristocrats; the world-renowned Zen garden, or rock garden; the tea garden; courtyard garden; and stroll garden. Detailed explanations of basic design concepts identify and interpret the symbolism of various garden forms and demonstrate these principles in use today in Japanese landscape architecture. Topics include: Design Principles Design Techniques Design Elements Godspirit in Nature Poetry in Paradise The Art of Emptiness Spiritual Passage Private Niches A Collector's Park

A showcase of Britain's most extraordinary gardens and landscapes from the twentieth century to present day. 100 20th-Century Gardens and Landscapes highlights the evolution of gardens and landscapes over the past century, tracing how these distinctive creations complemented buildings of their period. Entries in this book are grouped in chronological periods, documenting changing styles and techniques in a visual timeline. The examples chosen take the story from the Arts and Crafts garden and the garden city, through the landscapes created for mid-century housing and the new towns, to the low-maintenance gardens of the 1980s and contemporary trends for community and wildlife gardens. Designed landscapes were often integral to the conception of twentieth-century developments; the inclusion of a handful of particularly successful landscapes for memorial gardens, offices, industry, transport and parks demonstrate a changing attitude to public green space during the century and its increasing importance as private gardens have become ever smaller. Designers and architects such as Piet Oudolf, Charles Jencks, Frederick Gibberd, Geoffrey Jellicoe, Vita Sackville-West and Gertrude Jekyll are all featured, alongside more detailed essays on the history of gardens, planting styles, the importance of modern landscapes, and the career of Geoffrey Jellicoe. The text is written by architectural, landscape and garden historians including Elain Harwood, Barbara Simms and Alan Powers. Beautifully illustrated throughout with photography, illustrations and garden plans, this book is ideal for gardeners and landscape lovers alike.

Drowning in flowers - with perceptive pictures and quirky texts this award-winning book wants to plant in its readers a longing for beauty, harmony, for the joy of recognition through knowledge. Georg Grabherr, one of the most influential conservation biologists, has created a domestic garden and incorporated key biosphere reserve concepts. Over time, his garden has developed into an ecological gem where the idea of "nature in the garden" has been realised in exemplary manner. He guides us through the phenological seasons that divide the year by the arrival of key species, covers themes dear to the gardener's heart and engages in a dialogue with nature, thoughtfully accepting and using what is wild and spontaneous. He is asking whether the thousands of private gardens can become a Noah's Ark, suitable for rescuing threatened species. Award-winning photographer Lois Lammerhuber has captured this amazing space throughout a whole gardening year and introduces us to an unusual but convincing garden aesthetic.

Septic Tank Options & Alternatives by Feidhlim Harty is a user-friendly guide through the maze of selecting an eco-friendly sewage treatment option for your home. With so many different treatment systems and technologies available, it can be a challenge to make the choice that really reflects your values and priorities. This book lists conventional and alternative sewage treatment systems and outlines the pros and cons of each in a straightforward and non-technical way. Septic Tank Options covers The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved systems, plus innovative sustainable solutions, and also proposes alternatives where site and soil conditions are suboptimal. This book is a must for anyone worried about how well their current system is working, for people undergoing inspections, or for those who know they need an upgrade but don't know where to start. It is an invaluable guide for architects and engineers who are guiding clients through the options available, and gives treatment options that may be less costly, less energy intensive and more eco-friendly than an inspector may propose. It covers: Initial check - assessing your current treatment situation, Making good - examining the potential for repairs and improvements, Taking stock - looking at your site characteristics, priorities and personal preferences, Options available - different treatment systems explained, Putting it into action - planning, implementation and maintenance. If you want to be proactive about getting your system working and make sure you have as eco-friendly and cost effective option as you can, then this holistic overview is the book to read.

Garden Projects suit your needs and abilities, from practical and simple raised garden beds to more ambitious things, like a tool shed. There are more whimsical structures too-a flagpole, a garden swing, and an ornamental wheelbarrow for flower arrangements among them. Author Roger Marshall has carefully designed projects that don't require a vast array of tools or advanced woodworking skills. Every gardener will find ideas and plans to enhance his or her garden in this helpful book. Marshall applies his know-how and skillful delivery to a wide range of building projects that might take a weekend afternoon or provide a way to pass the time constructively on those dark winter days when you can't wait to get back out into the garden.

Be inspired by creative ideas and practical advice on how to create your dream outdoor space! With the help of BBC Gardener's World presenter, Adam Frost, you can learn the small plantings, design flourishes, hands-on creative projects, and simple landscaping tricks to transform your garden. This book will show you how to use what you already have, with something to suit everyone's taste, space, and budget! Taking an artisan's approach and finding ideas from his own garden, each project starts with Adam's inspiration, walking the reader through the creative process with clear step-by-step photography and instructions. Unlike other gardening books, it's all about finding ideas in the most unlikely places and turning them into something truly personal. Dig in and discover: -More than 25 design-led projects, with clear instructions and photography -Innovative landscaping and planting tasks that gardeners can tackle in a weekend -Fresh ideas and inspiration about how to create atmosphere in outdoor spaces Simple solutions that make an impact From renovating old garden furniture, to making your own garden water features, this book will open your eyes to the possibilities of upcycling and encourage you to use what you have. Rewild your garden with bird boxes, toad houses, and sculptural habitats for insects, to create a thriving natural environment. Rather use the space for yourself? Construct rope hammocks and fire pits to create the perfect atmosphere for outdoor cooking. Well known in the UK for his straightforward, clear presenting, and his award-winning design ideas, Adam offers realistic, achievable, and impactful suggestions to help you create the outdoor space you've always wanted. Whatever your taste, with a little work and a dash of imagination, you can produce something truly personal while developing your skills and enjoying the creative process! More green-fingered expertise! If you love Adam's artisanal approach and uncomplicated style, why not try his first book, How To Create Your Own Garden, for a practical, no-nonsense landscape design book.

A survey of thirty well-conceived and beautiful contemporary landscapes and gardens in which design is driven first and foremost by ecologically appropriate plant selection. In contemporary American garden design, beauty for beauty's sake is making a comeback. The sixty gardens featured here trace current planting trends across the country, showcasing the best designs of recent years from the verdant Pacific Northwest to the tailored Eastern Seaboard, as well as prairies in Denver and Texas and exquisitely detailed private gardens in the Southwest that create a sense of lushness even while working exclusively within the vocabulary of cactuses and succulents. Plants are used to reinforce meaningful content, ecological strategies, and, most importantly, to create immersive and emotional experiences. As the movements of architectural, naturalistic, meadow, matrix, graphic, and ecological planting design have been adopted in such notable incarnations as the High Line in New York and Citygarden in St. Louis, they have rekindled interest in using plants that suit a given site's ecology - and in letting plants, rather than hardscape elements, lead design. Residential as well as public gardens are featured, and all are united by an immediately perceptible, intelligent selection of plants that create an enthralling, memorable, and fitting sense of place: this is what makes a garden truly authentic. Over 250 full-color images reveal gardens created by the top American firms working today, including Andrea Cochran, Jack deLashmet, Doyle Herman, Elysian Landscapes, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, Hoerr Schaudt, Ron Lutsko, Steve Martino, Nelson Byrd Woltz, Nievera Williams, Oehme van Sweden, OLIN, Raymond Jungles, Christine Ten Eyck, Bernard Trainor, and Michael Vergason, as well as beautiful gems of gardens by lesser known regional firms. Detail as well as overview images of gardens throughout the seasons and abundant plant identifications make this volume a valuable reference for all home gardeners as well as landscape design professionals interested in tracing the themes prevalent in contemporary American gardens.

Widely acknowledged as the most influential land- scape designer of his age, Lancelot Capability Brown was to England what Frederick Law Olmsted was to America responsible for shaping the very ideal of the nation s parkland. Brown s ambition was to bring out of a landscape the best of its potential rather than impose his own ideas upon it. His designs are organic, weaving gestures of colour and perspective into the features that the country already afforded. So natural are his designs, and so perfectly do they complement the houses within them, that for many a Capability Brown landscape is the epitome of the English estate. His gardens and park- lands as much as the houses themselves would become icons of British country life. Published to coincide with the tercentenary of his birth, this remarkable book illuminates fifteen of Brown s most celebrated landscapes. To love the great English estates is to love the settings with which Brown surrounded them from idyllic parklands at Milton and Broadlands to structured landscapes around iconic houses at Blenheim, Burghley, Wake- field, and Chatsworth. With photography commissioned for the book, and including rarely seen archival drawings that shed light on Brown s process, this book serves as a guide to Britain s most beloved landscapes and an exploration of the masterful mind behind their creation.

Women Garden Designers presents twenty-seven of the most important and influential women garden designers and their gardens from around the world, showing both their finest commissions as well as the gardens they designed for themselves, in their own space. The carefully researched text examines their influences and their legacy to garden design. Beginning with the remarkable Gertrude Jekyll and Beatrix Farrand, who were working simultaneously, though on different sides of the Atlantic, the book then moves on into the 20th century, featuring international designers as diverse as Florence Yoch - who created gardens for film sets and for glamorous Hollywood homes - and Vita Sackville-West - whose regular gardening column in the Observer, along with her own garden at Sissinghurst, influenced those in Britain. In Australia, Edna Walling supplemented her income from her practice with regular articles in life-style magazines. Increasingly with picture-led articles, designers found a way to publicise and advertise their work, thus gaining new clients in emancipated women who were in a position to place their own commissions.Women designers were more likely and quicker to embrace the ecological garden movement particularly in Germany and Sweden in the middle of the 20th century. They are represented by Herta Hammerbacher and Rosemary Weisse, who created the glorious perennial plantings in Munich's West Park and Ulla Bodorff in Sweden, as well as Isabelle Greene in California with her dry native plantings. The modern movement includes Monica Gora and Topher Delaney, for whom spirituality and landscape as works of art are important. The more conventional structured approach is represented by Penelope Hobhouse and Rosemary Verey, who began creating gardens later in their lives, following motherhood. Haruko Seki from Japan and Isabel du Prat from Brazil express their own special cultural qualities in their trans-global practices.

Garden of Your Dreams is an inspirational and practical guide to complete outdoor transformations - from the smallest urban courtyard to a rural paradise. Let award-winning garden designer and landscape expert from Better Homes & Gardens Charlie Albone walk you through the process of turning your outdoor space into your own personal oasis. Start by identifying your dream design style, then learn how to make a plan that works for your site, budget and aspirations. Create an entertaining space you are proud of, prepare the soil and then the real fun begins - planting! Packed full of ideas and inspirational how-to as well as Charlie's personal plant guide, Garden of Your Dreams is the ideal first step to dreaming up your own outdoor transformation.

Larry Weaner is an icon in the world of ecological landscape design-he has designed more than 200 meadows in his thirty years in the business and is the founder of the annual conference New Directions in the American Landscape. And now his revolutionary approach is available to all gardeners. The Evolving Landscape shows how an ecological approach to planting can lead to beautiful gardens that buck much of conventional gardening's E counter-productive, time-consuming practices. Instead of picking the wrong plant and then constantly tilling, weeding, irrigating, and fertilizing, Weaner advocates for choosing plants that are adapted to the soil and climate of a specific site and letting them naturally evolve over time. Allowing the plants to find their own niches, to spread their seed around until they find the microclimate and spot that suits them best, creates a landscape that is vibrant, dynamic, and gorgeous year after year. The lushly-photographed reference, the crowning achievement of a long and successful career, is an important moment in horticulture that will be embraced by anyone looking for a better, smarter way to garden.

Every gardener loves perennials. Buy them and plant them, and most will flourish and even expand year after year. But in addition to reliability, perennials offer gardeners a wonderful opportunity to make a stunning visual statement in their home landscapes - if you know how to combine and arrange them. In THE PERENNIAL GARDENER'S DEISGN PRIMER, Stephanie Cohen and Nancy Ondra, two top garden writers and teachers, offer fun, organized, and - most important - attainable advice on how to create gorgeous gardens using these beloved plants. Cohen and Ondra walk the gardener step-by- step through the process of creating new gardens, as well as of bringing new life to gardens that have lost their lustre. They explain how to pick perennials that suit the site by making the most of plant colour, shape, size, and texture; and how to create eye-catching plant combinations. Beautiful illustrations accompany the new garden plans, and stunning photographs capture how Cohen and Ondra have redesigned their own gardens. Throughout the book, a lively dialogue between Cohen and Ondra encourages readers to experiment and to create their own satisfying designs. The authors also offer down-to-earth design solutions for 20 specific types of gardens, including everything from a minimum maintenance garden to a more complex container garden, from planting a formal border to indulging in the controlled chaos of a cottage garden. Whether you are breaking ground for a new garden, or revitalizing an existing bed, THE PERENNIAL GARDENER'S DESIGN PRIMER can help every gardener achieve great results - year after year.