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Books > Gardening > Gardens (descriptions, history etc)
Hybrid Drawing Techniques: Design Process and Presentation reaffirms the value of traditional hand drawing in the design process by demonstrating how to integrate it with digital techniques; enhancing and streamlining the investigative process while at the same time yielding superior presentation images. This book is a foundations guide to both approaches: sketching, hardline drawing, perspective drawing, digital applications, and Adobe Photoshop; providing step-by-step demonstrations and examples from a variety of professional and student work for using and combining traditional and digital tools. Also included are sections addressing strategies for using color, composition and light to further enhance one's drawings. An eResource offers copyright free images for download that includes: tonal patterns, watercolor fields, people, trees, and skies.
For readers who like gardening (and love the English language), this posthumous collection of Henry Mitchell's Washington Post "Earthman" columns is "equal parts entertainment and shrewd horticultural advice" (Science News). Henry Mitchell is "beloved for his witty, smart, informed, philosophical, wide-ranging and often wickedly humorous columns" (Detroit Free Press).
The Hive was the centrepiece of the gold medal winning UK Pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo, and from June 2016 takes up its new home within Kew Gardens. Soaring 17 metres in the air, designed by Wolfgang Buttress and created by BDP, Simmonds Studio and Stage One, The Hive is an immersive, multi-sensory experience inspired by ground-breaking UK scientific research into the health of bees. Showcasing British creativity, innovation and leadership in overcoming global challenges, this magnificent aluminium structure draws visitors into the space via a wildflower meadow, as though they are worker bees returning to the hive. Hundreds of glowing LED lights bring this 40 tonne lattice structure to life, while a beautiful symphony of orchestral sounds fills the air, with an atmospheric undercurrent of buzzes and pulses. Triggered by vibration sensors within a real beehive, the sound and light intensity within the pavilion increases as the energy levels in the living hive surge, giving visitors an incredible insight into the ever-moving life of a bee colony.The Hive at Kew is a beautifully illustrated celebration of this fascinating project. The book is divided into three sections, with James Haldane, Design Editor for The Architectural Review focusing first on the origins and the architecture of the Hive and its creation led by artist Wolfgang Buttress. The central body of the book focusses on the immersion of the Hive at Kew and the surrounding wildflower meadow designed to attract a variety of bees. This section includes features on the team behind the Hive, as well as Kew's horticultural experts. Finally, Martin Bencsik of Nottingham Trent University and Kew's Phil Stephenson explain the pioneering research into bee health and communication that inspired the Hive, and how Kew is working to help bees in their vital role as pollinators. Beautifully illustrated throughout with photographs of the Hive itself, its construction, and the wildflower meadow surrounding it, as well as architectural plans of the structure.
Tucked inside venerable museums, perched on rooftops, concealed behind sleek midtown facades, and waiting beyond unassuming gates you may have passed a hundred times, if you know where to look, remarkable gardens welcome visitors in almost every corner of New York City. From the windy bluffs of The Heather Garden in Fort Tryon Park to the bold, contemporary Gantry Plaza State Park in Hunters Point, Queens, to the innovative, recently-opened High Line, this pocket-sized guide tells the stories of more than 100 gardens in New York City's boroughs. In addition to presenting the flora and fauna of New York's urban fabric, it also chronicles the history, events, and personalities behind the green spaces visited by generations of New Yorkers. More than 50 color photos showcase the gardens, with each garden entry offering complete visitor information, clearly-labeled maps of each borough or region, and lively anecdotes sprinkled throughout. Praise for the First Edition: "[A] beautiful and instructive guide to 100 gardens (the number du jour) in the five boroughs, as delightful as it is petite." -Verlyn Klinkenborg "Find a green oasis near you in the new Garden Guide: New York City . . . The beautifully photographed, pocket-sized book covers more than 100 public gardens . . . these horticultural escapes . . . will make you breathe a little easier." -Time Out New York "[This] guide can be used to find a refuge from the concrete . . . [and] help New Yorkers find the riches that are theirs in this great city." -Urban Outdoors
From 1946 to 1957, Vita Sackville-West, the poet, bestselling author of All Passion Spent and maker of Sissinghurst, wrote a weekly column in the Observer describing her life at Sissinghurst, showing her to be one of the most visionary horticulturalists of the twentieth-century. With wonderful additions by Sarah Raven, Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst draws on this extraordinary archive, revealing Vita's most loved flowers, as well as offering practical advice for gardeners. Often funny and completely accessibly written with colour and originality, it also describes details of the trials and tribulations of crafting a place of beauty and elegance. Sissinghurst has gone on to become one of the most visited and inspirational gardens in the world and this marvellous book, illustrated with drawings and original photographs throughout, shows us how it was created and how gardeners everywhere can use some of the ideas from both Sarah Raven and Vita Sackville-West.
THE GALANTHOPHILES is the first book to focus on the lives of snowdrop devotees during the years 1854 to 2014 when snowdrops came of horticultural age. It tells the stories of the most important individuals whose fascination with every aspect of the genus Galanthus ensured the survival of so many of the snowdrops we grow today. The stories are interwoven with accounts of the introduction of new snowdrop species and new snowdrop variants and provide a history of Galanthus cultivation in Britain.
One January morning in 1734, cloth merchant Peter Collinson hurried
down to the docks at London's Custom House to collect cargo just
arrived from John Bartram, his new contact in the American
colonies. But it was not reels of wool or bales of cotton that
awaited him, but plants and seeds... "From the Hardcover edition."
'Roderick Floud's ground-breaking study of the history, money, places and personalities involved in British gardens over the past 350 years gives fascinating insight into why gardening is part of this country's soul.' Michael Heseltine, Deputy Prime Minister (1996-1997) 'Thousands of books have been written about the history of British gardens but Roderick Floud, one of Britain's most distinguished economic historians, asks new and important questions: how much did gardens cost to build and maintain, and where did the money come from? Superbly researched, it is full of information which will surprise both economists and gardeners. The book is fun as well as edifying: Floud shows us gardens grand and humble, and introduces us gardeners, plantsmen and technologies in wonderful varieties.' Jane Humphries, Centennial Professor, London School of Economics At least since the seventeenth century, most of the English population have been unable to stop making, improving and dreaming of gardens. Yet in all the thousands of books about them, this is the first to address seriously the question of how much gardens and gardening have cost, and to work out the place of gardens in the economic, as well as the horticultural, life of the nation. It is a new kind of gardening history. Beginning with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Roderick Floud describes the role of the monarchy and central and local government in creating gardens, as well as that of the (generally aristocratic or plutocratic) builders of the great gardens of Stuart, Georgian and Victorian England. He considers the designers of these gardens as both artists and businessmen - often earning enormous sums by modern standards, matched by the nurserymen and plant collectors who supplied their plants. He uncovers the lives and rewards of working gardeners, the domestic gardens that came with the growth of suburbs and the impact of gardening on technical developments from man-made lakes to central heating. AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH GARDEN shows the extraordinary commitment of money as well as time that the English have made to gardens and gardening over three and a half centuries. It reveals the connections of our gardens to the re-establishment of the English monarchy, the national debt, transport during the Industrial Revolution, the new industries of steam, glass and iron, and the built environment that is now all around us. It is a fresh perspective on the history of England and will open the eyes of gardeners - and garden visitors - to an unexpected dimension of what they do.
Garden design began in West Asia and spread through Europe. This book tells how, in the British Isles, it flourished to an extraordinary degree. Following the historical method in Tom Turner's books on Asian gardens (2010) and European gardens (2011), it uses almost 1000 colour photographs, plans and style diagrams to provide a word and image history of garden design. Individual chapters cover the Celtic, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Romantic, Arts and Crafts, Modern and Postmodern periods. Additional information about the gardens in the book is available on the Gardenvisit.com website, which the author edits http://www.gardenvisit.com/history_theory/british_gardens_companion
Are gardens anything more than collections of plants? Spaces for leisure activities? Extensions that protect the private house from the public road? Art objects appreciated by a relatively small group of connoisseurs? To consider such questions this guidebook invites readers on a tour of ten beautiful gardens as depicted in thousands of pages of fiction written by the most skillful of novelists over almost a millennium. From Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji and the ever-mysterious Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, to such Chinese masterpieces as the Chin Ping Mei and Cao Xuequin Story of the Stone, and on through the works of famous American, Australian, English, and European writers, these novels compound gardens as they exist within the culture of the time with the specific needs of fiction, tackling everything from planting plans to the activities that take place within the garden confines. When novelists write the garden it is revealed, again and again, as the site of peccadilloes that define the state of being human, and while these written gardens may not be places we would ever wish to visit, should they actually exist, a consideration of their role in defining humanity provides yet another way to experience and appreciate any real gardens we happen to encounter.
Featuring beautiful photographs and insightful commentary this Japanese gardening book is a must-have for any gardening or zen enthusiast. At the heart of a Japanese garden is harmony with nature. More than simply a landscape of trees and flowering shrubs, a Japanese garden provides a place of serenity and rest, filled with peaceful spots that lend themselves to meditation and contemplation. Japanese Gardens celebrates and illustrates this ideal, showcasing the exquisite natural beauty of more than 20 quintessentially Japanese gardens--big and small, urban and rural, traditional and contemporary. The expert author-and-photographer team behind this book excels at capturing and explaining the essential elements and techniques that distinguish Japanese garden design from that of other countries. The featured sites reflect a cross-section of Japanese culture and history including large feudal period gardens, temple and Zen gardens and private countryside gardens. The mountain flower garden, tea garden, rock garden and bonsai garden alike are all celebrated and appreciated in this beautiful book.
From castle to cottage, nearly every medieval dwelling possessed an
enclosed plot for growing herbs, food, and flowers. This
illustrated survey of gardening lore from the era between the
Norman Conquest and the Renaissance reveals a wealth of ancient
secrets. Drawn from obscure sources--scraps of parchment from
account rolls, charters, surveys, and registers--the book provides
hitherto inaccessible knowledge about the plans, organization, and
common uses of gardens in the pre-industrial world.
The poetic appreciations of gardens by Andrew Marvell and John Keats sit alongside the horticultural passions of Frances Hodgson Burnett and the mythic power of gardens as described by Charlotte Bronte and William Blake. Editor and avid gardener Philip Robinson has paid attention to the small, private plot as much as the grand aristocratic and imperial gardens - from medieval Japan to English Landscape to suburban Arizona - and this collection is sure to inspire and enchant gardeners everywhere.
Mildred and Arthur Byne explored exceptional Spanish gardens in the 1920s, sketching and photographing them in order to share design ideas with fellow enthusiasts in the United States. They focused on glazed polychrome tiles and green foliage as the the primary characteristic of a Spanish garden, in contrast with a "cool white house." They also turned their attention to patios as the embodiment of "indoor garden and outdoor salon." This book is their legacy, and offers a multitude of ideas in the forms of architecture, hardscaping, and landscaping. It is also a wonderful tour of historic gardens, including the Alhambra, and gardens of notables including the Duke of Medinaceli, the Duke of Alva, Seville, and the Marques de Viana, Cordova. Regions covered include Granada, Ronda, Las Ermitas, Sierra de Cordova, and Majorca.
A stunning photographic journey through the seasons; These 145 spectacular color photographs celebrate nature's cycles in a splendid and diverse southern garden. Each month for more than six years, Carol and Hugh Nourse have explored the paths and collections of the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens, capturing the kaleidoscope of its seasons. In this large-format, beautifully produced volume, we move by season and scale from detailed close-ups to atmospheric vistas. From the subdued blues of a snow-covered garden to the dazzling golden light on scarlet leaves in autumn, the Nourses' keen and affectionate eyes have captured not only the living forms, but the essence of a garden in all its changing moods. A general introduction traces the history and development of this public garden, and brief sectional essays describe the special features of the Garden in each season. The sequence begins aptly with the glorious explosion of spring and meanders joyfully through the waxing and waning of the seasons to the stark forms of winter. An ""Under Glass"" section showcases tropical and subtropical jewels in the three-story conservatory. In the foreword, Garden director Jeff Lewis points out that the Nourses' photographs enable us to ""notice details we might otherwise miss - symmetry, texture, form, color."" Dedicated volunteers with the Garden's Plant Conservation Program, the Nourses champion conservation in a uniquely powerful way by simply letting the beauty of nature speak for itself. As they turn our eyes to the intricate, fragile beauty of tiny wildflowers and lacy ruffles of peeling bark, we begin to see this and all gardens with new wonder.
"Garden and Grove" is a pioneering study of the English fascination with Italian Renaissance gardens. John Dixon Hunt studies reactions of English visitors in their journals and travel books to the exciting world of Italian gardens: its links with classical villas, with Virgil and farming, with Ovid and metamorphosis, its association with theater, its variety, its staged debates between art and nature. Then he looks at what English visitors made of these Italian garden experiences upon their return home and at how they created Italianate gardens on their estates, on their stages, and in their poems.With a wealth of literary and visual materials previously untapped, Hunt provides a new history of an intriguing and vital phase of English garden history. Not only does he suggest the centrality of the garden as a focus for many social, aesthetic, political, and philosophical ideas but he argues that the so-called English landscape garden before "Capability" Brown, in the late eighteenth century, owed much to a long and continuing emulation of Italian Renaissance models.
A classic in the literature of the garden, Green Thoughts is a beautifully written and highly original collection of seventy-two essays, alphabetically arranged, on topics ranging from “Annuals” and “Artichokes” to “Weeds” and “Wildflowers.” An amateur gardener for over thirty years, Eleanor Perényi draws upon her wide-ranging knowledge of gardening lore to create a delightful, witty blend of how-to advice, informed opinion, historical insight, and philosophical musing. There are entries in praise of earthworms and in protest of rock gardens, a treatise on the sexual politics of tending plants, and a paean to the salubrious effect of gardening (see “Longevity”). Twenty years after its initial publication, Green Thoughts remains as much a joy to read as ever.
2018 marks the bicentenary of the death of Humphry Repton, one of the most important and prolific of English landscape designers. Repton made a particularly significant contribution to the landscape of Hertfordshire, working at no less than eighteen places in the county, ranging in size from great mansions like Cashiobury and Panshanger to more modest 'villas' owned by wealthy businessmen and industrialists, such as Woodhill in Essendon. This book - the fruits of many years of research by members of the Hertfordshire Gardens Trust Research Group - describes in detail all of these commissions, assessing in each case the extent to which Repton's ideas were actually implemented and how much survives of them on the ground today. Particular attention is given to those places for which Repton prepared one of his famous 'Red Books', such as Tewin Water, Lamer House, New Barnes and Wall Hall. But sites where Repton's contribution is less well documented are also discussed, including Organ Hall and Hilfield House in Aldenham, Cashiobury Park and The Grove in Watford, Brookmans Park, Bedwell Park, Wyddial Hall, and Marchmont House in Hemel Hempstead. In all cases, the book presents complete transcriptions of all the key documents relating to Repton's activities, including the full text of seven Red Books. The introductory essay by Tom Williamson sets Repton's activities in Hertfordshire within the wider context of his career, and also shows how his work in the county can cast important new light on his style, and on its economic, aesthetic and ideological implications. Profusely illustrated in colour with reproductions of all the Red Book watercolours, together with extracts from contemporary estate maps, sketches and other material, this scholarly yet readable volume will be of considerable interest to garden historians, landscape historians, and all those interested in Hertfordshire's rich historic heritage.
This first full study of Erasmus Darwin's gardening, horticulture and agriculture shows he was as keen a nature enthusiast as his grandson Charles, and demonstrates the ways in which his landscape experiences transformed his understanding of nature. Famous as the author of the Botanic Garden (1791) and grandfather of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was a larger-than-life enlightenment natural philosopher (scientist) and writer who practised as a doctor across the English Midlands for nearly half a century. A practical gardener and horticulturist, Darwin created a botanic garden near Lichfield - which galvanised his poetry - and kept other gardens, an orchard and small "farm" in Derby. Informed by his medical practice and botanical studies, Darwin saw many parallels between animals, plants and humans which aroused hostility during the years of revolution, warfare and reaction, but helped him to write Zoonomia (1794/96) and Phytologia (1800) - his major studies of medicine, agriculture and gardening. Captivated by the changing landscapes and environments of town and country and supported by social networks such as those in Lichfield and Derby, Darwin avidly exchanged ideas about plants, animals and their diseases with family, patients, friends such as the poet Anna Seward (1742-1809), farmers, fellow doctors, huntsmen and even the local mole catcher. The is the first full study of Erasmus Darwin's gardening, horticulture and agriculture. It shows him as keen a nature enthusiast as his contemporary Rev. Gilbert White of Selbourne (1720-1793) or his grandson Charles, fascinated with everything from swarming insects and warring bees to domestic birds and dogs, pigs and livestock on his farm to fungi growing from horse dung in Derby tan yards. Ranging over his observations of plant physiology and anatomy to the use of plant "bandages" in his orchard and electrical machines to hasten seed germination to explosive studies of vegetable "brains", nerves and sensations, the book demonstrates the ways in which Erasmus Darwin's landscape and garden experiences transformed his understanding of nature. They provided him with insights into medicine and the environmental causes of diseases, the classification of plants and animals, chemistry, evolution, potential new medicines and foodstuffs and the ecological interdependency of the natural economy. Like the amorous vegetables of the Loves of the Plants (1789) which fascinated, scandalised and titillated late Georgian society, the many living creatures of Darwin's gardens and farm encountered in this book were for him real, dynamic, interacting and evolving beings who helped inspire and re-affirm his progressive social and political outlook.
On Sunday, October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire from thirty-two floors above a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on the Las Vegas Strip. The event left fifty-eight people killed, more than 860 injured, and thousands psychologically wounded. To date, this was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States in the last seventy years. Despite the chaos and terror, first responders, concert-goers, and passersby aided vic tims and survivors. Nearby businesses, hotels, and the university provided safety and services. Medical personnel rushed to area hospitals. And as the scope of the tragedy unfolded, the people of Las Vegas flooded blood donation centers and offered food, water, comfort, and care. And they cre ated a garden-The Las Vegas Community Healing Garden. The story of the garden unfolds through photographs and the words of survivors, first responders, family members, medical professionals, counsel ors, and members of the community. In only a matter of days, volunteers and local businesses transformed a vacant downtown lot into a serene urban oasis. Families and friends of those lost in the tragedy soon adopted each of the fifty-eight trees planted in honor of their loved ones, and visitors left behind colorful mementos, including painted rocks, photographs, and orna ments, as well as words of encouragement, love, loss, and strength. In the aftermath of 1 October, an often misunderstood city revealed its soul under the most heartbreaking of circumstances. The inspirational voices and stories from a community touched by tragedy provide comfort and encouragement. And the organic response to the unthinkable is a testa ment to how one community came together at its darkest hour, chose hope over despair, unity over hate.
Kew's Grade 1 listed Temperate House is the world's largest surviving Victorian glasshouse and the reopening in May 2018 will mark its 155th anniversary. The Temperate House has been closed for the past five years for a major restoration project, which has involved repairs to the entire framework and ventilation system, brickwork and statuary, as well as an overhaul of the planting and the inclusion of some of the world's rarest plants. It is home to Kew's temperate zone plants, containing specimens from South Africa, Central and South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and oceanic islands. Many of its best known species, such as its tree ferns, have been in Kew's collection since the glasshouse first opened, or even longer. This book is a souvenir of the history of the Temperate House, and details the changes that have occurred in its 155 years, all accompanied with fascinating archival photographs and botanical illustrations. Central to the book is a pull out double page section detailing the new planting and layout of the House.
EcoGothic gardens in the long nineteenth century provides fresh approaches to contemporary ecocritical and environmental debates, providing new, compelling insights into material relationships between vegetal and human beings. Through eleven exciting essays, the collection demonstrates how unseen but vital relationships among plants and their life systems can reflect and inform human behaviours and actions. In these entertaining essays, human and vegetal agency is interpreted through ecocritical and ecoGothic investigation of uncanny manifestations in gardens - hauntings, psychic encounters, monstrous hybrids, fairies and ghosts - with plants, greenhouses, granges, mansions, lakes, lawns, flowerbeds and trees as agents and sites of uncanny developments. The collection represents the forefront of ecoGothic critical debate and will be welcomed by specialists in environmental humanities at every level, as a timely, innovative inclusion in ecoGothic studies. -- .
Treasures of Botanical Art reveals the history of botanical painting, its beauty and science, with works from two renowned collections and over one hundred significant artists, dating from the late 1400s through to today. Paintings featured from the Kew collection include works by well-known artists the Bauer brothers, Redoute, Ehret, Fitch, Lilian Snelling and Margaret Mee as well as many lesser known artists. Contemporary works are featured from the Sherwood collection by a host of international artists. Over 200 stunning botanical paintings are showcased in this gift book, accompanied with informative text on the origins, history and relevance of botanical art, as well as information on the plants themselves. Biographies of over 120 artists are provided at the end of the book, revealing the historical and international background of this genre. 'Two of the best botanical minds come together in this beautifully illustrated book...the illustrations, from the Kew Collection, are breath-taking and the text wonderfully informative'. Oxford Times 'This book is a tribute both to Shirley Sherwood and to Kew, and should be bought by everyone with an interest in botanical illustration'. Curtis's Botanical Magazine
Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-85) is recognized as one of America's most important gardeners and garden writers. In 1957, Lawrence began a weekly column for the "Charlotte Observer," blending gardening lore and horticultural expertise gained from her own gardens in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina, and from her many gardener friends. This book presents 132 of her beloved columns. Never before published in book form, they were chosen from the more than 700 pieces that she wrote for the "Observer" over fourteen years. Lawrence exchanged plants and gardening tips with everyone from southern "farm ladies" trading bulbs in garden bulletins to prominent regional gardeners. She corresponded with nursery owners, everyday backyard gardeners, and literary luminaries such as Katharine White and Eudora Welty. Her books, including "A Southern Garden," "The Little Bulbs," and "Gardens in Winter," inspired several generations of gardeners in the South and beyond. The columns in this volume cover specific plants, such as sweet peas, hellebores, peonies, and the bamboo growing outside her living-room window, as well as broader topics including the usefulness of vines, the importance of daily pruning, and organic gardening. Like all of Lawrence's writing, these columns are peppered with references to conversations with neighbors and quotations from poetry, mythology, and correspondence. They brim with knowledge gained from a lifetime of experimenting in her gardens, from her visits to other gardens, and from her extensive reading. Lawrence once wrote, "Dirty fingernails are not the only requirement for growing plants. One must be as willing to study as to dig, for a knowledge of plants is acquired as much from books as from experience." As inspiring today as when they first appeared in the "Charlotte Observer," the columns collected in "Beautiful at All Seasons" showcase not only Lawrence's vast knowledge but also her intimate, conversational writing style and her lifelong celebration of gardens and gardening.
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