1 comments about Paradise by Design: Tropical Resorts and Residences by Bensley Design Studios.

1. This is a fabulous book! I just finished reading it cover to cover and I am amazed at the quality of design and how great the photos are! Well worth the money as this Mr Bensley is a true artist. The designs are inspirational and truely maxamilist....minimalisism is boring!

4 comments about Plan Graphics for the Landscape Designer (2nd Edition).

1. This is a must have book for a beginner landscape design student and an excellent review for a more advanced student. It provides a step-by-step discussion of the design process with plenty of illustrations and examples.



2. This book should definitely be on the shelf of anyone who designs landscapes unless you have already mastered all there is to know about plan graphics. The first edition of this book was very good, but the second edition is even better. The only reason I gave it a raing of four stars rather than five is that it contains only a very brief section about color rendering, a topic that deserves much more attention than Bertauski gives it. But it's still a great book even with that imperfection.



3. We used this book in Landscape Design at my college. It is an essential tool for the basics of plan graphics and design layout. It focuses on keeping the design clean and professional. I STRONGLY recommend this book to any first year Landscape Design student, or any professional who needs a good reference tool.



4. This book doesnt' fail in maintain its focus on very practical aproach of the subject. It adopts a direct and easy to follow language and tips: Doesn't pretend to be artificially academic, intends strongly to help the beginners on their careers as the veterans too. Would be obvious that all books dealing with the same subject should present top quality on editorial design, but in many cases it's not true. This book, instead, cares a lot about its graphic presentation. The 2nd edition shows even better layout and more useful photos and drawings than those already great found on the previous edition. Covering decently the computer aplications on landscape renderings, it counts 264 pages: almost double comparing to the competing books and it's clearly cheaper, available at a fair price. My favourite in Landscape rendering field.

1 comments about Vertical Gardens.

1. The cover is great. Other than that there is almost nothing worthwhile in this book. It does not help me to create vertical gardens, and even the photos are very uneven, and not always about vertical gardens (unless you consider planting twining plants on trellis to be a vertical garden)

No comments about Avant Gardeners.

No comments about Making the Modern Garden.

5 comments about P. Allen Smith's Garden Home: Creating a Garden for Everyday Living.

1. This book is a must have for anyone who wants to expand their living space into the outdoors. It exhibits a common sense approach for any yard. Great pictures, very well written and organized.



2. This is the best of all the P Allen Smith books! I bought as a gift, and thumbed thru ... want it
   for myself too!



3. This well-designed, well-written book is an excellent book on garden design principles. I thoroughly enjoyed the first section, in which P. Allen gives us an intimate tour of his own beautiful garden home. This is not only inspiring but also an excellent teaching tool, as "a photo is worth a thousand words" and serves to underscore the design principles set forth in the remainder of the book. His garden is so gorgeous, but I wondered how out-of-reach it is for us 'normal folks'- - until I noticed that he mentions that he repeatedly uses "workhorse" plants that are relatively problem-free/easy-to-care for. He loves his roses, for example, but seems to have chosen many heirloom varieties known for their resistance to blackspot and diseases (ie the venerable 'New Dawn'). And his lush garden home didn't spring up overnight, of course- - it was over 10 years in the making, and he shares some of its growing pains. Before reading this book, my image of P. Allen was that he was too finicky/persnickity/too "too" for my tastes, but in exploring this delightful book I have revised my opinion of him completely. The guy likes what he likes and knows his stuff, but I no longer find that off-putting. Finally, others have referenced his recollections of the Ashbrookes as being hoity-toity; might we cut him some slack and instead interpret his recollections as his OWN deeply inspirational/aspirational experiences and these aristocrats as fond friends/gardening soulmates. We all have places and people who are dear to us, and perhaps in the telling our enthusiasm is misinterpreted. I truly enjoyed this book and recommend it highly; it is written in pleasant prose and is not a 1-2-3 do this, do this, do this instructional manual but rather an aspirational guide that sets forth solid design principles beautifully illustrated largely through the author's own property.



4. As an artistic person of a different sort from Mr. Smith (I am a musician), I appreciated his highly artistic approach to garden design. I am not new to garden design, but I have had little training. Still, as a musician, I have an appreciation for things such as balance, composition, and color. Mr. Smith's approach, in my opinion, is quite ingenious for those of us who have a fine appreciation for the artisitic achievements of the great gardens (I have been to some), and would like to apply the same principles used by the masters on a smaller (much smaller) scale. I must wholeheartedly disagree with those who saw no purpose in Mr. Smith's discussion of his relationship with Lady Ashbrook and the garden at Arley. Allen used the greatness and principles applied by one of his mentors (Lady Ashbrook) to his own home garden (he also discusses the influence of his own family's more humble circumstances on his gardening preferences throughout the book) and then showed us how we could apply the same principles to our own. If you will look closely at both the text and the pictures, it is obvious that Mr. Smith is using Arley to help us to see the wisdom and (above all) the beauty of this type of design and that by applying the same principles, we can acheive similar effects in our own gardens (although for most of us, on a much smaller scale!). Further, the non-glossy end section is more of an epilogue to what has been said in the text and pictures previously; the inclusion of more pictures here would be redundant to the many gorgeous examples given to illustrate specific examples of each principle elaborated. What Mr. Smith does include in the ending section are very helpful specifics of how to begin your own garden design, complete with lists of possible plants.



5. Even if you are too lazy to create a garden, this book is a beauty to look at. You can use his ideas in a little garden, as well as the White House Rose Garden. The photography is great, and the colors are inspiring. It is, however, a little expensive.

3 comments about Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors, Second Edition.

1. This book is very lengthy and full of information, but unlike typical textbooks, it is not overly 'heady' nor boring... Each chapter is quite long (50 pages approx.) and the words are quite small, yet you can sit there for four hours straight and still be interested in what is on the next page!? The only thing that would make this book better would probably be color pictures (there are a good amount of informative pictures, yet they are all black and white). Great book for anyone in the construction industry...very interesting!



2. Time has changed. A few years ago, few people knew about sustainable design and construction, green buildings or LEED. Today, sustainable design and construction has gone mainstream. How do we know? We actually have clients asking us to design a LEED certified building or do a sustainable landscape design. Architecture and landscape architecture are knowledge-based, service-oriented professions. Architects and landscape architects have to catch up and become experts in sustainable design and construction, green buildings and LEED to be able to provide the necessary professional service to the clients.
   
   "Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors" is one of the best books on sustainable design and construction. It covers 10 principles of sustainable landscape construction: keep healthy sites healthy (preserve topsoils and existing trees, minimize construction damages, etc.), heal injured sites, favor living, flexible materials, respect the waters of life (understand, protect and restore wetlands, restore rivers and streams to full health, collect and conserve water, reuse gray water, etc.), pave less (reduce paving, reduce runoff from paving, use porous paving, etc.), consider origin and fate of materials (Use local, salvaged or recycled materials, avoid toxic and non-renewable materials, etc.), know the cost of energy over time, celebrate light, respect darkness (lighting efficiency and light pollution control), quietly defend silence (various ways of noise control), and maintain to sustain (alternate to mowing, bio-based maintenance products, etc.). Each principle is demonstrated with case studies and followed by resources for further studies.
   
   "Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors" has 416 pages and many line drawings and interior black-and-white photos. It is one of the most comprehensive books on sustainable landscape construction.



3. an excelent overview of the sustainable approaches to landscape design, a good basis to start thinking and acting sustainably in the landscape

2 comments about The French Country Garden.

1. This book is worth the investment. Photographs are of high quality and there are plenty of them. Did find the book not an easy read and believe more than a couple of pages could have been devoted to each garden. Just when you want to look around a corner to see what might be next, next was another garden. All-in-all a good book and if I ever get to France will have a better idea of where to start garden touring.



2. This is a reprint of a hardbook in softcover form with a new cover photo. The content is wonderful but I already owned the hardcover and thought it was a "new book".

No comments about Detail in Contemporary Landscape Architecture.

3 comments about Designing Your Gardens and Landscapes: 12 Simple Steps for Successful Planning.

1. Well worth the money. If you ever get a chance to see her in person, do it. Very Knowledgeable, very practical.



2. This book takes you through every step you will need to landscape your yard and garden. The format is somewhat like a workbook but with a ton of useful information presented in a way that makes it easy for even a "brown-thumb" like me to understand. I especially like how the author left room for notes and grids for designing the garden. Pair this with "The Encyclopedia for Organic Gardening" and you will need no other gardening literature.



3. Since moving into a new house, I've been devouring every landscape book on the market, in hopes of acquiring information that will enable me to transform the weed patch and ugly bush that are the only features of my front yard into something beautiful. This is absolutely the best of the "how-to" landscape books! A real laboratory manual of landscape design, this book avoids the two major failures of many others on the market. First, unlike those that offer page after page of photos of beautifully manicured lawns from which I am expected to magically intuit the rudiments of landscape design, this book assumes rightly that I know absolutely nothing about landscaping. Then, the author uses clear diagrams and graphs to gently but methodically guide me through all stages of a design and implementation process that will enable a previously clueless me to transform my ugly view into a photo-worthy scene. Second, this book avoids the weaknesses of landscape books that so overwhelm me with the theoretical intricacies of landscape design that I am tempted to throw in the trowel and hire the work out (perhaps the authors of those books wanted me to do that all along?). By contrast, this book sequences in clear and concrete language the questions requiring decision that I will confront, lays out a range of possible actions, and then offers specific suggestions (with diagrams and graphs) for implementation. This book is sturdy and it needs to be. Rather than grace your coffee table, it will be with you as you get down and dirty in your yard with tape measure, string, and clipboard to work through the pages of this book on your way to something beautiful.