1 comments about The Ultimate Garden Planner: The Definitive Guide to Designing and Planting a Beautiful Garden.

1. This book's title says it all. Peter McHoy wrote the book (in fact, he has written numerous books) on gardening, but The Ultimate Garden Planner tops the list. Whether you want water features, a rock garden, a formal or an informal garden, or a wildlife-attracting haven, here is your one-stop, step-by-step planner.

   Large color plates on every page illustrate a compendium of outdoor features. McHoy incorporates planting diagrams, cross-section views, and numbered instructions with plant identification.

   The result gives novice and veteran gardeners alike hundreds of choices to adopt outright or adapt for your own particular terrain and needs.

   Two green thumbs up!

1 comments about God's own junkyard: The planned deterioration of America's landscape.

1. 
   This book's fury-driven introductory essay makes many superb points about what we're doing (okay, what we've done - the book was published in 1964) to our landscape, or rather are continuing to allow to be done by soulless "business is business" types in our devil-take-the-hindmost cultural milieu.
   
   The 130+ b&w photos are stunning, in the best and worst senses of the word -- and not unmixed with nostalgia, as we note the smallish herds of 50's cars in situ, and realize that many of the "ravaged" sites shown are now viewable as nostalgia sets, compared with what's come in the decades after.
   
   A great visual treat (if you take your Tums), and a source of some interesting cultural perspectives (e.g., the story of the Seagram Building's lost "prestige tax" court battle). A must for any American cultural history library.

2 comments about Rodale's Landscape Problem Solver: A Plant-By-Plant Guide.

1. What an informative book! Now I know why the chipmunks were digging up my bulbs, but not eating them. I found out what was making the notches on my lily of the valley (weevils) and what to do about it. I learned I should prune back my ajuga and give winter protection for the azaleas and rhododendrons. I also found out what the strange growths were on the azaleas.
   This book covers hundreds of plants with a description, planting tips, and most common diseases and treatment. Being Rodale, the treatment is the most environmentally friendly way to solve your landscape problem.



2. This book provides easy to find solutions to your disease and insect problems. It is organized by plant common names, and there is loads of information on pests and problems associated with each plant named. I only wish there were a larger variety of less common plants. But most common ornamentals are included.

1 comments about Elements of Garden Design.

1. Of the hundred garden and gardening books I own, I always go back to this one (I have the 1995 ed.). It is fundamental and funny, a refreshing breath of (un)common sense when designing a garden, or trying to figure out what's lacking in your own garden, or understanding what it is that gives such satisfaction in other people's gardens. The few drawings convey exactly what the author is trying to say.

1 comments about This Meager Nature: Landscape and National Identity in Imperial Russia.

1. Ely's elegant prose drew this reader, who knows little of Russia, into a new landscape and illuminated the ways it was seen (and not seen) by its nineteenth century inhabitants. Although I was familiar with references to the Russian landscape in literature, I knew nothing of the Russian landscape painters of the nineteenth century. Ely introduces this fascinating subject and guides one through the work of such painters as Shishkin and Vasil'ev (with fine illustrations) to an appreciation of the way they saw and painted their native land. He then links this to a developing sense of national identity in the Russia of this period.
   I was particularly interested in what this suggests about the role of a nation's landscape in its national myth, in the role it plays as a source of common pride in one's country and the ways we choose to portray specific features of our landscape to ourselves.
   A good read from start to finish.

No comments about Visualization in Landscape and Environmental Planning.

No comments about Villa Lante, Bagnia.

1 comments about Landscape Modeling: Digital Techniques for Landscape Visualization.

1. Ive only had has this book a short time but I like it. There are lots of color images and text book like explanations.
   
   However, the examples are somewhat dated as the book was published in 2001. Most of the sample images are showing some low poly objects, or discussing ways of representing trees which are frankly out of date. No mention that I saw so far of Vue D'esprit, which is far superior to some of the software discussed, such as VistaPro.
   
   The authors need to update it with newer images and discuss some of the newer software, a lot of changes in 3d rendering have emerged in the last 4 years.
   
   I doubt somebody who has been using WCS, Vue, Terragen, Maya, or any advanced 3D landscape artist would find a whole lot of use for this book, but it would be good to give an overview and explain some terminology for a beginner.

No comments about Interior Landscapes: An American Design Portfolio Of Green Environments.

No comments about Denys Lasdun.