This beautiful book is packed with creative ideas for making a successful outdoor space of every shape and size. There is advice on flooring, walls and screens, containers, structures, furniture, ornaments, water features and lighting. Inspirational examples are presented alongside step-by-step instructions to explain how to create the features shown. Case studies with detailed plans explore the dynamics of the different designed spaces, and an illustrated plant directory gives a comprehensive listing of planting options. A section on maintenance shows how to keep your courtyard looking its best. If you have a space to design from scratch or one that needs a bit of an overhaul, this book provides all the advice you need to create a bespoke garden retreat that captures the essence of outdoor living.

This title includes fantastic ideas for making things, growing plants and flowers and attracting wildlife, with 60 practical projects and 175 photographs. It offers over 60 fun, child-friendly projects for gardening, with ideas for cultivating flowers, growing fruit and vegetables, making crafty projects and attracting insects, birds and animals. It contains an introduction with all the gardening basics includes advice on safety, equipment, understanding plants and a guide to commonly used gardening terms. It helps you grow a hyacinth in a glass, have tomatoes tumbling down the wall, spell your name in flowers, shape a den out of bamboo and make a mini-beast shelter. Every project features an at-a-glance 'you will need' list, growing times and a star rating guide to show you how easy or hard it is. Each idea has simple step-by-step instructions and there are over 175 fantastic colour photographs showing you what to do. A list of popular plants shows how to grow and use the plants in the book and many others, including where they like to live and how they like to be treated. Growing plants and making things for the garden is endless fun. This book is bursting with planting and gardening ideas to suit children from the ages of 5 to 12. It offers an introduction that arms the reader with all they need to know about plants, soil and tools. Then, over 60 step-by-step projects have ideas for doing things indoors, growing fruit, vegetables and flowers, making crafty bits and pieces for the garden and encouraging wildlife to visit. Whatever the weather, here are masses of ways to keep you occupied in and out of the garden, with fun activities for all children, from tiddlers to safari explorers.

Jenny Hendy explains how topiary can be incorporated into garden styles, from traditional and contemporary to country-house and Japanese. A section on green architecture looks at larger topiary elements, including hedges, doorways and windows, and niches and alcoves. Achievable geometric shapes are also covered, from spheres and pyramids to turrets and helter-skelters. There are suggestions for more ambitious planting effects, such as knot gardens and parterres. Sculptural topiary is also explored, from the clipped creatures of cottage gardens to modern plant shaping. A plant directory then lists the best plants and the training to which they are suited. This fascinating insight into the art of topiary includes step-by-step instructions, spectacular photography and authoritative text. It shows how topiary can complement a range of garden styles and create design effects, such as defining an entranceway, marking a boundary or creating depth, and features projects for beginners through to experienced gardeners that show how to clip a spiral, create freehand figures, use topiary frames, train an arch, and tame a hedge.