No comments about City Edge: Contemporary Discourses on Urbanism.

No comments about The Accelerated Sublime: Landscape, Tourism, and Identity.

No comments about Book of Landscape Gardening (American Society of Landscape Architects Centennial Reprint) (American Society of Landscape Architects Centennial Reprint).

No comments about Transforming the Common Place.

2 comments about Creating Small Formal Gardens.

1. This is an excellent how to for formal gardens. It has a good balance of well done pictures, text and diagrams. Whether you are trying to create a simple herb garden or large complicated parterres and mazes, this book breaks it down without dumbing it down.
   
   The photos and text cover semi-formal styles, like English border gardens, cottage gardens and small backyard spaces. There are good images of knot gardens done in different types of plants and on different scales. There are a number of rose garden styles and herb garden styles. It also covers adding water features, like reflecting pools and ponds into a formal setting. Additionally it has shrub gardens and how to sculpt them.
   
   There is a good chapter of illustrated diagrams. It has 18 basic layouts. Each one with relatively detailed instructions on how to create the desired effect. Including suggestion on how to layer the plantings for visual effect. How to mow the lawn to achieve patterns. Suggestions of brick walkway designs. Alternative hedge trimming patterns. And what plants to use. It also suggests what the annual maintenance is for each different style of garden. Which gives you a great idea of what you're getting yourself into!
   
   After the layouts there is an index of recommended deciduous shrubs and trees, evergreen shrubs and trees, fruiting and flowering trees, foliage plants, etc....it gives zones and light requirements. And it indicates what each plant would be best suited to. Plant names are all in Latin. The index isn't extensive, it only covers 4 pages, but it does give easily attainable plants.
   
   The last pages of the book give illustrations of shaping hedges (with clever ways of keeping them perfectly flat), laying out a perfect knot garden, creating different topiaries, and how to espalier fruit trees.
   
   I love this book, and use it often to show my customers different ideas for their spaces.



2. At first I thought this book would be too sophisticated for a non-professional such as myself - I was wrong! There are many great ideas which I plan to use this summer in my own garden. The author illustrates many garden plans, I have decided to borrow plans from several of them. He also explains tips on how to use symmetry, how to create illusions using height and space, etc. He also explains the history of formal gardens which I found interesting. Another useful feature of this book is the listing of suggested plants for formal gardens and their light requirements. This is the first book I have ever ordered which I picked up and read immediately.

No comments about Sydney: History of a Landscape.

No comments about Turfgrass Biology, Genetics, and Breeding.

No comments about Victorian Garden, The.

2 comments about From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles, and Estates.

1. If you want a good history of this era, this is not it - unless you are an economist. Only then could you want all of the transactions that occurred in the history of French economics and that is what this book gives you. Everything is told in terms of taxes, fees, and more taxes.
   I am currently reading "The Course of French History," by Pierre Goubert. It is much more enlightening!



2. The book should be called "from the Middle Ages, skimming lightly over the Renaissance to absolutism". There was a lot on the period of the 2-3 kings just prior to Francois I. Then the book glosses over Francois I through Henri III and fast forwards to Henri IV. Most of the book is not on the Renaissance period per se (which arguably started with Francois I). The Wars of religion are almost ignored... This book is of a type currently in vogue with academic historians: there is much statistical analysis of government data, e.g. 2 of 5 people in 1585 did blah-blah. A little dry for my taste. Also, terms are not well defined prior to use. Not a book for the beginner, but, in all fairness, I believe this book was written to be an academic text, not for mass consumption.

2 comments about Mazes (Shire Albums).

1. I have realised that my last review was completely wrong. This book has gone down in my estimation when i realised how little coverage of finger-mazes is contained within the glossy text. More finger mazes please, Adrian.



2. This is one of the most interesting Christmas presents I've ever had! Not only does it contain useful facts about mazes but also spectacular pictures of mazes and their surroundings. I recommend this book to anybody who has had the pleasure of visiting one of Adrian Fisher's mazes. Diana Kingham is a wonderful illustrator, the detail and colors are fantastic-well worth buying.