Autobiography of a Garden follows Patterson Webster's twenty-five-year journey as she transforms a beautiful but conventional country property into a 750-acre landscape that challenges what a garden is, or can be. A unique, personal memoir, this book details how a neophyte gardener moved from copying the ideas of other people to learning from them, and finally to striking out on her own. Combining traditions from French and English eighteenth-century gardens with contemporary perspectives, Webster communicates concepts and ideas that underpin the garden's design, sharing a process that evolved over seasons and years. She explores the meaning of creating a garden and the meaning that a garden can create, linking ideas about aging and the passage of time to the reality of growth and death in the landscape and thinking through how art in a garden can reframe questions of memory and our relationship to nature. Using the history of the property as a framework, Webster considers the impact made by those who lived on the land before her: the Abenaki, the early settlers, the cottagers, the farmers, the US southerners who came to Quebec to avoid the summer heat, and the northerners who defeated them in the Civil War. With engaging personal anecdotes, she describes the thinking behind each part of the garden and the examples that guided her, the mishaps and successes she encountered, and her plans for the future. Beautifully photographed and full of inspirational ways of thinking about gardens and gardening, Autobiography of a Garden blends history, horticulture, and art, encouraging readers to make their own surroundings more beautiful and more meaningful.

Children love to play in risky-often misunderstood to mean unsafe-ways. It is often how they learn. Research shows that activities like climbing on trees and boulders, hiking in nature, and playing in a creek are excellent ways for kids to develop their creativity and their senses, because playing outdoors evokes different sights, sounds, smells, and textures. Letting Play Bloom analyzes five outstanding case studies of children's nature-based risky play spaces-the Slide Hill at Governors Island in New York, the Berkeley (CA) Adventure Playground, and Wildwoods at Fernbank Museum in Atlanta, as well as sites in the Netherlands and Australia. Author Lolly Tai provides detailed explanations of their background and design, and what visitors can experience at each site. She also outlines the six categories of risky-not hazardous-play, which involve great heights, rapid speeds, dangerous tools, dangerous elements, rough-and-tumble play, and wandering or getting lost. These activities allow children to explore and challenge themselves (testing their limits) to foster greater self-worth while also learning valuable risk-management skills such as dealing with fear-inducing situations. Filled with more than 200 photographs, Letting Play Bloom advocates for a thoughtful landscape design process that incorporates the specific considerations children need to fully experience the thrill that comes from playing in nature.

Children's gardens are magical places where kids can interact with plants, see where food and fibers grow, and experience the role of birds, butterflies, and bees in nature. These gardens do more than just expose youngsters to outdoor environments, they also provide marvelous teaching opportunities for them to visit a small plot, care for vegetables and flowers, and interact in creative spaces designed to stimulate all five senses. In The Magic of Children's Gardens, landscape architect Lolly Tai provides the primary goals, concepts and key considerations for designing outdoor spaces that are attractive to and suitable for children especially in urban environments. Tai presents inspiring ideas for creating children's green spaces by examining nearly twentycase studies, including the Chicago Botanic Gardens and Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. The Magic of Children's Gardens features hundreds of comprehensive drawings and gorgeous photographs of successful children's outdoor environments, detailed explanations of the design process, and the criteria needed to create attractive and pleasing gardens for children to augment their physical, mental, and emotional development. Exposing youth to well-planned outdoor environments promotes our next generation of environmental stewards. The Magic of Children's Gardens offers practitioners a guide to designing these valued spaces.

Every year, many thousands of acres of woodlands, deserts, meadowlands, and coastal scrub are turned into home or commercial sites. Ironically, by the time these structures are complete, bulldozers have scraped the land clean of its natural vegetation and character, the very features that attracted buyers in the first place. In Building within Nature, Andy and Sally Wasowski introduce new and exciting techniques for preserving the natural land on which we build new homes, offices, or even shopping centers. Building within Nature stresses that the unnatural landscapes so common in America literally exist on artificial life support. A natural landscape, on the other hand, is filled with native flora and can exist on rainfall alone. A structure built within nature looks as if it has been gently set down into a mature and established landscape-the easiest kind of landscape to maintain. The Wasowskis illustrate this new concept in construction through profiles of sites in California, Arizona, South Carolina, Minnesota, and other locations in North America. They also highlight useful techniques for revegetation, discuss the importance of soils, and argue for the preservation and maintenance of natural habitats. Building within Nature offers a practical blueprint for creating communities where both wildlife and human life thrive in a harmonious relationship. "For offering workable alternatives in nontechnical terms to ecologically minded home owners, contractors, and architects, the Wasowskis' book is highly recommended." -Library Journal Andy and Sally Wasowski are the authors of nine books about gardening and landscaping with native plants, including Gardening with Prairie Plants: How to Create Beautiful Native Landscapes (Minnesota, 2002). Their work has appeared in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens handbooks, Country America, National Gardening, Sierra, Audubon, American Gardener, and Fine Gardening. Darrel G. Morrison, FASLA, is one of the nation's most respected native plant landscape architects.

A breakthrough in inspiring yet practical do-it-yourself garden and landscape design, including dozens of detailed plans.

Finally, homeowners can tackle new garden designs and fix old ones with the confidence and know-how to succeed. Professional garden designer Gordon Hayward provides the tools by demonstrating the guiding principles behind his own designs: take clues from the style, materials, and proportions of existing features, particularly your house, but also garages and outbuildings, property lines, streets, walls, and walkways. Look closely at these features, and they will suggest good design.

Over sixty color photographs and over one hundred detailed watercolor sketches of Hayward's plans for his clients show how to read the clues and then design gardens that relate to their surroundings and unify entire properties. Many tricks of the trade are given, including how to make inviting, sheltering entry gardens; screen unsightly features and utilities; and reclaim narrow, shady side yards. Surefire methods for designing front, side, and backyard gardens are explained. 200 color photographs and drawings.

"Every homeowner needs this book!"—Julie Moir Messervy, garden designer and author of The Inward Garden

"Garden design has never had a better teacher. Read Your House, Your Garden and make everything look right."—Roger B. Swain, Science Editor, Horticulture magazine

In 1988, the city of Chicago declared three acres of public land along Lake Michigan the future home of DuSable Park--a green refuge dedicated to Chicago's first settler, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. The park has yet to emerge, however, and it is possible that these three lakefront acres could be sold to developers. In 2001, Chicago artist Laurie Palmer sent out an open request for proposals, and the resulting artwork became an innovative exhibit.
This inspiring collaboration of Chicago's artists, architects, and activists to bring the plight of DuSable Park to the public has now been catalogued in "3 Acres on the Lake," This volume includes fascinating and thought-provoking renderings of the imagined DuSable Park, as well as commentary on the project and other public space issues from many of its contributors. "3 Acres on the Lake" will be insightful reading for anyone interested in urban planning, landscape architecture, and the struggle to preserve public space in American cities.

Are gardens works of art? What is involved in creating a garden? How are gardens experienced by those who stroll through them? In What Gardens Mean, Stephanie Ross draws on philosophy as well as the histories of art, gardens, culture, and ideas to explore the magical lure of gardens. Paying special attention to the amazing landscape gardens of eighteenth-century England, she situates gardening among the other fine arts, documenting the complex messages gardens can convey and tracing various connections between gardens and the art of painting. What Gardens Mean offers a distinctive blend of historical and contemporary material, ranging from extensive accounts of famous eighteenth-century gardens to incisive connections with present-day philosophical debates. And while Ross examines aesthetic writings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including Joseph Addison's Spectator essays on the pleasures of imagination, the book's opening chapter surveys more recent theories about the nature and boundaries of art. She also considers gardens on their own terms, following changes in garden style, analyzing the phenomenal experience of viewing or strolling through a garden, and challenging the claim that the art of gardening is now a dead one. Showing that an artistic lineage can be traced from gardens in the Age of Satire to current environmental installations, this book is a sophisticated account of the myriad pleasures that gardens offer and a testimony to their enduring sensory and cognitive appeal. Beautifully illustrated and elegantly written, What Gardens Mean will delight all those interested in the history of gardens and the aesthetic and philosophical issues that they invite.

One of the fundamental considerations in landscape architecture is whether to create something which appears to be natural, or to design something deliberately artificial. Always moving between nature and artifice the art of landscape architecture expresses itself in a sensitive awareness of time and place. If the design is not to become a mere ornament, then it must be supported by concepts and visions, daring to create something new from the existing surroundings.

This collection of essays which have been published over the last decade in Topos - European Landscape Magazine, is a valuable contribution to the literature in the specialised field of landscape architecture. The authors include Paolo Burgi who writes on dimensions of memory, Joachim W. Jacobs who investigates the Bauhaus and the theory of space, and Kathinka Schreiber who takes a critical look at landscape in film.

Where there are trees and humans, here have always been treehouses places to sleep, to eat, to dream, and to play. This wonderful book presents an inspirational selection of some of the finest ever made by The TreeHouse Company, the world's biggest treehouse building business. It features over twenty beautifully designed treehouses in detail, from simple playrooms for children to two-storied adventure complexes linking a number of trees, as well as cozy dens, office treehouses, a dining room in the sky complete with a full kitchen, and even a conference complex.
Following an introduction that sketches the history of the treehouse, from Emperor Caligula's "Eyrie," where guests were entertained by jugglers and acrobats, to the incredible new treehouse complex at Alnwick in the UK, the book features detailed case studies. Each narrates the design and construction of the treehouse, explaining how the designers worked in sympathy with the surroundings, what steps the builders took to conserve the tree, and how it is suited to the owner's needs. The materials used in construction are also listed. The final part of the book recounts a build in detail, showing exactly what happened during construction and is followed by easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions, giving useful advice for those planning their own treehouse. Throughout the book a selection of stunning photographs of interiors and exteriors show exactly how far treehouses have come in recent years.
Whether it is a place for work or for family relaxation, the ambience of a treehouse is quite different from any other place. Wonderful views, a sense of being close to nature, the cool shade of foliage, and the gentle rustling, combine to make treehouses a unique place apart from normality. The amazing structures in this book will make anyone with a tree in their garden look up and wonder.

All aspects of garden archaeology and garden restoration are examined in this book. It includes background to the development of garden archaeology, advice on loking for evidence, archives, excavations and restoration.'

Create the garden of your dreams with ideas and advice from a leading light in the gardening world, Melanie Walker.

Whether you have a tiny urban courtyard or a roomy rural plot, Garden Style will inspire gardeners from every corner of South Africa to make the most of their garden and entertainment area.

Garden Style describes in detail how to achieve any of 19 distinct garden styles: from sweeping woodland and grassland gardens, through moon, rock and rose gardens, to compact courtyard and cottage gardens. It also covers the fundamentals of gardening, such as understanding garden habitats, basic design elements and water-wise gardening.

Each chapter includes sections on planning and planting, with a list of key plants suited to each style, plus lots of helpful tips and features on different aspects of gardening – and, of course, ample spectacular photos to inspire you.

Foolproof mosaic projects for your garden, including planters, furniture, and ornaments

One of the most long-lasting and hard-wearing artforms, mosaic pieces are perfect to make the most of your outdoor room. Suitable for a tiny terrace or a large garden, the projects in Garden Mosaics show you how to decorate your outdoor space in the most charming, individual, and enduring way.

The extensive techniques section shows you how to choose and use the right tiles for your environment. The range of tiles on the market today is better than ever; and the book makes the most of the wealth of new materials available such as spangled tiles or inexpensive but authentic gold-leaf tiles. As you progress, you can develop your own creativity with tips on tile- and colourmatching that allow you to adapt the projects to make pieces completely unique to you and your garden.

All suitable for beginners, the 25 projects in the book range from simple decorative pieces, such as the enchanting, simple child’s footprints and butterfly stones to practical and sturdy weatherproof pieces, including a trompe l’oeil chequered mosaic tabletop and delightful planters that will add colour to your garden especially in winter. Some projects, such as the night light, can be finished in under two hours.