1 comments about Design for Human Ecosystems: Landscape, Land Use, and Natural Resources.

1. John Lyle continues his seminal work presented in "Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development". Any one interested in designing deep structures of urban spaces into sustainable environments would benefit greatly from reading this book. This book also covers rural development as well. Propagation of water flows for maximum beneficial inter-relationships is one particula r topic of interest for me.

   I highly recommend this book!

No comments about Inside Out: Relating Garden to House.

1 comments about A Land Between: Owens Valley, California (Center Books on Space, Place, and Time).

1. Rebecca Fish Ewan's A Land Between is an engaging, informative, scholarly, and highly recommended title which examines the idea of how people's preconceptions of California's Owens Valley influenced their decisions about managing the land. Primary sources, oral histories and research provide a perspective on the land and residents of Owens Valley, examining its natural history, human occupation, and use over the decades. A unique and intriguing study.

1 comments about 'scape: The International Magazine of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism (Scape).

1. This is a great journal for professionals, or the aspiring urban planners and landscape architects. It covers environmental design from an international perspective with extensive essays, interviews in a well though out academic manner; without the ubiquitous adverts. This periodical can be enjoyed by any one from professionals to backyard gardeners, just about anyone whom is devoted to environmental conservation and sustainability.
   A. Thomas

No comments about Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape.

2 comments about Black & Decker Landscape Design & Construction (Black & Decker).

1. This book is a must for anyone planning on building a patio, building a stone wall etc. I has many step-by-step photographs, not drawings!! I find actucal photo's to be much more helpfull, they are true to life where as drawings give you a perfect situation, not very realistic. In short an invaluable reference that you can take into the field with you, and inexpensive too!!



2. This book is easy to read & understand with lots of pictures showing how the work is done. I completed a large brick patio with no prior experience using this book as a guide. The patio turned out great and I impressed all my friends! My only negative point would be that the model in the photo never gets dirty.. a little unrealistic :)

3 comments about Home Planners Complete Book of Landscape Plans: 50+ Garden Designs to Transform Your Yard.

1. This book is great for garden ideas. Plenty of interesting designs shown in graphic form, plus an artist's illustration. Lists of plant material have to be ordered. Some may find this a shortcoming. In our case, it's great as most of those lists contain plant material that is inappropriate for our region.



2. While this book does not have comprehensive information on each plan, it still provides some interesting ideas. Additional information such as comprehensive blueprints as well as plant and material lists customized to your region is available for purchase, but I found this useful without having to order the additional material. The different plans provide a wealth of ideas and act as a catalyst in designing your own landscape. You won't get substantial information on the plant life itself, in fact in most cases you don't get anything but a picture, but this allows you to substitute a more appropriate item suited to your tastes and region. This is by no means a "how-to design a landscape" book, but if you are looking for some ideas and basic landscape plans then this book delivers.



3. I bought this book expecting the 50+ garden design plans they promised. Well, they had 50+ garden designs, all right. You got six for free and you had to pay at least $10.00 apiece for the remaining plans. It is essentially a catalog of plans and you buy the ones you want.

   Not worth the money!!!!

1 comments about The Book of Garden Design.

1. Great photos, serious design concepts explained. Highly recommended!

5 comments about Grandmother's Garden.

1. I am stunned to see some bad reviews for this book! I came across it accidentally at the library and intend to buy it soon. It is certainly not a "garden book" in the sense of what to plant where. What it is is an extraordinary history of grandmothers' gardens and accompanying art, culture, and values. I love cottage gardening, history, the Arts and Crafts movement, Gertrude Jekyll, etc. and this book is about many of these things. I've also learned through it of many interesting books and writers and plan to research them. Highly recommended. Well written too.



2. I was really disappointed in this book - it's more of an art history book than a gardening book, and it's a history of some fairly insignificant art at that (with some exceptions). I found the text to just be a list of artwork. It was extremely uninformative. Even the illustrations weren't all that attractive, since so many were in black and white.



3. I'd borrowed this book from the library and I had to go out and buy it! If you are a painter and love the era of early American Impressionism, you'll love this book because it shows you the paintings and it shows you the actual gardens that inspired them. I see gardens as potential painting subjects - especially the "cottage gardens" or "grandmother's gardens" - that were so inspiring to the artists of the late 1800s. If you don't paint, you probably won't get the point of this book.



4. I waited and waited to afford to buy this book. It's on its way back to Amazon. What a disappointment..short superficial chapters and useless pictures. I suspect you'll see this book on remainder tables everywhere ...very soon.



5. I was disappointed. It was more a history of gardens than anything else. They described historic gardens in cursory detail. Yes, it's a pretty book but most of the photos are in black & white because these gardens are the real thing (i.e. from the turn of the century), the color photos are of artwork. If you're looking for inspiration or how-to's, bypass this one.

5 comments about The Inward Garden: Creating a Place of Beauty and Meaning.

1. This is an amazing book with stunning photos. The author shows us the most beautiful gardens around the world and inspires us to recreate those places which has deep meanings to us.



2. I have no problems with the premise of the book -- that is why I am read it. I have always believed strongly in an intuitive approach to garden design. The problem that I have with reading this book is the excessive wordiness. Several online reviews of her life's work say more in a paragraph or two than the entire first half of the book -- and say it much better. Messervy is a master at saying the same thing with seventeen varieties of repetition. ENOUGH! -- LET'S MOVE ON, JULIE!
   
   Particularly in the first half of the book, in addition to the relentless repetition, she rambles on in generic terms about nonspecific generalities; not really saying much at all. True, this book is dealing with the conceptual. But please; elaborate with some good examples or analogies rather than restating what you have already restated.
   
   Instead of examples, she will toss out ambiguous, esoteric references that would mean nothing to anyone but a select few. For a representative example: On page 82, when talking about a natural effect achieved in a woodland garden, Ms. Messervy says, "A good example is found in Sir John's Wood at Kingshaye Court near Tiverton in Devon, England." That is it! No diagram, no picture and no further information! Perhaps I am supposed to be impressed with name dropping (Or is it just plain, droppings?) from her world travels. However, her "example" adds nothing substantive to the text.
   
   There are a few photos of Messervy's design work in the book and they are superlative. I wish there were a lot more of them. I don't question that her work embodies the ideals she is promoting. It is just that she does not communicate these very well. There are fragments of insight scattered throughout the book. It is unfortunate that you have to wade through so much verbiage just to find them. I got the feeling that many of these needless words were displaying an underlying desire to remain "Daddy's Little Princess" in her incessant admonishments to "recall your childhood".
   
   I am confident that I could learn a lot from Ms. Messervy if her writing was a bit less allegorical. I have a hard time swallowing statements like: "The body of your mother was your first and perhaps most indelible landscape." Umm ... Julie, babe ... You obviously don't know my mom!
   
   I think her actual design work is good. Curiously, most reviews of this book are good. My opinion is at odds with most reviews and espoused content. I suspicion she has a really good publicist as opposed to a really good book. :-(
   
   IronBelly



3. Unlike most garden books that focus on individual design elements of gardening, this one focuses on how to identify the atmosphere and mood of the garden you want to create. The author tells readers to think back to those places that have given them the greatest joy and ease, either as children or as adults, and to use the memory of these places in creating a retreat or garden of the mind in one's own yard. You should read this book before all others



4. Messervy has found a way to codify something that seemed vague to me: the "feel" of a landscape, or how a person reacts to a space. She breaks landscape forms down into 7 "archetypes," lists the features of each, then suggests ways to use this new understanding in designing your own yard or garden. I suddenly realized, for example, that the narrow, paved alleys coming off my tiny city backyard weren't necessarily the problem and disappointment I had always considered them, but were features I could play up and turn to advantage. (They had always tempted me to walk to the end -- now I just have to make that journey worthwhile.) I was just bursting with ideas after reading this book, able to look at my tiny space with new eyes. The archetypal business isn't just pleasantly mystical but is also practical, backed up with sophisticated but down-to-earth ideas. It's a different kind of garden design book that gets you to think of the overall "f! eel" (not look) you want first (the step missing from most gardening books), and then figure out how to actually construct it -- a satisfying blend of mythic/artistic with practical and well-organized. (And as a bonus, the photos are drop-dead gorgeous!)



5. Julie Moir Messervy has written what undoubtedly will become a classic of garden writing and design. Deeply literate and beautifully written, The Inward Garden gives the reader a process for designing one's "dream garden". Based on garden archtypes: the sea, the cave, the harbor, the promitory, the island, the mountain, and the sky, this book provides a structure for imagining the garden of one's desires and a practical process for designing this deeply felt garden. The author describes in detail each of these archytical gardens. Each archtype is illustrated with outstanding garden photographs. The Inner Garden gently asks the reader to think and feel deeply about the garden of his or her dreams and to have the couage to begin creating that garden.