No comments about Listening to Stone: Wall Building, Rural Follies, and Meditations on Nature.

2 comments about Small Pools.

1. This book was full of wonderful scenery but it was not helpful in providing ideas about how to landscape an exsisting site. This was more an armchair travel book, not helpful in designing our own space.



2. If you dream your swimming pool as a mediterranean paradise, well, this is the book to look for. Exquisite pictures expose exotic pools accompanied by dramatic views on mediterranean coasts. The author provides brief explanations on materials, landscapes and, best of all, square footage, which I find very helpful. I personally was hoping for tropical themes and landscapes, and even "smaller" pools in "smaller" patios/backyards. So, most of the scenes exposed in this book do not apply to my particular situation. However, if I was to mimic a mediterranean look for my pool or patio, I'd find this book quite inspirational.

   Thank You.

4 comments about New Topiary: Imaginative Techniques from Longwood.

1. I received the package open at one end. The two books had been wet and were both wavy. I purchased one for a freind and sent it to her. The other I kept. It is still wavy. I would appreciate a replacement.



2. This is a book for people who know everything about topiary techniques and are looking for ideas of fancy and complicated forms. If you are not in this category (like me), stay away from this book: it would be useless to you like it is to me.



3. This book is the best topiary book I have seen. It details Pennsylvania's Longwood Gardens and gives all the trade secrets to their wonderful yearly displays.

   The book is lavishly illustrated with color photographs, and detailed black and white sketches. This is truly topiary at its greatest. Included are the yearly carousels (lions, horses and ostriches), a brontosaurus, a dragon, a giant Japanese pagoda, elephants, swans, roosters, and the Wizzard of Oz, to name only a few.

   Topiary balls, topiary bells, topiary baskets - all here in every imaginable form! Pruned or Free-Form Topiaries, Wire framed, stuffed - all here! Some of the stuffed topiaries are huge, and this book doesn't skimp on the details on how to create such large moveable topiaries.

   The detailed directions in this book are amazing. I want so much to tell you the details and all the great hints - but then you wouldn't buy the book! (and I truly believe this should be in every topiary collection!)

   There are standards (the ones that look like lollipop plants) for fuchias, coleus, chrysanthemum, poinsetta, and ivy, hydrangea. The book includes everything - weather, grafting, and some great shortcuts.

   There is a section on pests, moss topiary, columns, woven topiaries, grass scupture, watering systems, indoor vs outdoor topiary, how to select frames, how to make them ( even the spot welding for 14-guage wire on the big ones!)

   There is a wonderful plant section that details growth rates, growth habits, compatibility, flowering habit and timing and leaf shape for both ivies and plants ( sorry but I didn't feel like counting how many)

   And oh, I forgot the frog!

   This is just an inspiring book. There is no better word! The examples are among the finest I have seen. The detail is extrordinary and the instruction is superb.

   What I found particularly helpful are the techniques for making your topiary moveable. (I move a lot.) Another particular favorite were the tiny topiaries that are sized for a warm and humid bathroom (they're really little).

   If you buy one book on topiaries, this is the one I would recommend. It offers both the inspiration and the step by step instruction you need to go with it.




4. This book is the best topiary book I have seen. It details Pennsylvania's Longwood Gardens and gives all the trade secrets to their wonderful yearly displays.

   The book is lavishly illustrated with color photographs, and detailed black and white sketches. This is truly topiary at its greatest. Included are the yearly carousels (lions, horses and ostriches), a brontosaurus, a dragon, a giant Japanese pagoda, elephants, swans, roosters, and the Wizzard of Oz, to name only a few.

   Topiary balls, topiary bells, topiary baskets - all here in every imaginable form! Pruned or Free-Form Topiaries, Wire framed, stuffed - all here! Some of the stuffed topiaries are huge, and this book doesn't skimp on the details on how to create such large moveable topiaries.

   The detailed directions in this book are amazing. I want so much to tell you the details and all the great hints - but then you wouldn't buy the book! (and I truly believe this should be in every topiary collection!)

   There are standards (the ones that look like lollipop plants) for fuchias, coleus, chrysanthemum, poinsetta, and ivy, hydrangea. The book includes everything - weather, grafting, and some great shortcuts.

   There is a section on pests, moss topiary, columns, woven topiaries, grass scupture, watering systems, indoor vs outdoor topiary, how to select frames, how to make them ( even the spot welding for 14-guage wire on the big ones!)

   There is a wonderful plant section that details growth rates, growth habits, compatibility, flowering habit and timing and leaf shape for both ivies and plants ( sorry but I didn't feel like counting how many)

   And oh, I forgot the frog!

   This is just an inspiring book. There is no better word! The examples are among the finest I have seen. The detail is extrordinary and the instruction is superb.

   What I found particularly helpful are the techniques for making your topiary moveable. (I move a lot.) Another particular favorite were the tiny topiaries that are sized for a warm and humid bathroom (they're really little).

   If you buy one book on topiaries, this is the one I would recommend. It offers both the inspiration and the step by step instruction you need to go with it.

No comments about Amazonia: Territorial Struggles on Perennial Frontiers (Center Books in Natural History).

No comments about Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture).

1 comments about Robert Irwin Getty Garden.

1. I felt that this book is not only a beautiful book on art and gardens to own, but qualifies as an "Everyday Reference" for our Architecture office. The photographs by Becky Cohen, 2000 Alfred Eisenstaedt Award winner, were reason enough to give this gorgeous book as gifts to friends as well as other Associates in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Interior Design. The images she took relay the purposefulness and soulfulness of the design of the gardens, which in turn, connects and inspires the Designer in their own field, whatever it might be. As a reference book to Designers, the book surpasses it's own purpose to show the incredible Getty Gardens and to view the dialogue between Weschler and Irwin, which at times, I'm sorry to say, can be dull and stupid sounding. However, the compositions and textures of the photographs are just too stunning to harbor that opinion of the dialogue for very long. In the book, you feel you might realize that Cohen's immensely thoughtful compositions of the garden photographs are a better art itself than of the artistic gardens. Again and again, with every page, they follow one after the other to reveal a new thought, not just about gardens or a particular spectacular plant or flower, but about how you see them. It inspires a desire to see them for yourself, as she does, to open an intimate experience with nature. Each image impresses that the two dimensional beauty you see in front of you might be part trickery. The "real" gardens couldn't have that much beauty! But, of course, when you visit the gardens, they do. Cohen is merely brilliant at capturing it. As you find the last of the images at the end of the book, it reminds me of the wonder you feel when you see anything beautful for the first time, it sort of makes you hold your breath and makes your heart skip a bit.

1 comments about New Towns For Old: Achievements In Civic Improvement In Some American Small Towns And Neighborhoods (American Society of Landscape Architects Centennial Reprint).

1. New Towns For Old is a must have for anyone that is interested in building great cities. Nolen's descriptions of the new towns of his time are filled with lessons that can be applied to current practice. Once you read this book, you will want to see these cities.

2 comments about The Vanguard Landscapes and Gardens of Martha Schwartz.

1. Martha Schwartz views landscape design as an artistic medium and her gardens embrace unexpected materials, vibrant colors, and a minimum of plant life. Based on traditional landscape design models her finished products present a challenging vision of nature, landscape, and design. The Vanguard Landscapes and Gardens of Martha Schwartz presents 32 visionary projects by this Boston original.

   Martha Schwartz has been, pushing the boundaries of garden design since her first 15 minutes of fame. In 1980 "The Bagel Garden" landed her on the cover of Landscape Architecture Magazine. In this installation, located at 190 Marlborough Street (her own front yard), she arranged bagels in two evenly spaced rows, atop purple aquarium gravel, around the perimeter of a pre-existing formal box hedge all surrounded by iron railings. Captured in beautiful photographs it is easy to see how she started making waves.

   The Vanguard Landscapes includes other Boston projects like the "Necco Garden", an installation at MIT, composed of geometrically arranged Necco wafers and car tires painted in pastel shades. And "The Splice Garden", based on two classical garden models, a French garden with hedges severely clipped in geometric forms and a Japanese Zen garden with raked paths that intend to mimic nature. Rendered in green aquarium gravel and Astroturf her vision fit in with the lack of water for the site and the inability for the roof to hold up the weight of a real garden.

   Not all fun and games, she transformed the plaza in front HUD in Washington DC into an interesting and friendly space relying on the design motifs of Marcel Brauer, the buildings' architect. And the Jacob Javits Plaza in NYC received the classical treatment of a parterre de broderie made up of green painted NYC park benches.




2. MARTHA SCHWARTZ HAS REDEFINED LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE IN THIS COUNTRY AND CONTINUES TO DO SO INTERNATIONALLY. THIS BOOK DISPLAYS THE DESIGN POTENTIALS IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND BY DOING SO QUESTIONS OUR OWN INHIBITIONS AS DEVELOPERS, HOME OWNERS AND ARCHITECTS TO LET LANDSCAPE BECOME BANAL - STAID AND THE EVERYDAY - UNDESIGNED.

No comments about Bamboo: A Material for Landscape and Garden Design.

3 comments about Penelope Hobhouse's Garden Designs.

1. A friend of mine introduced this book to me when I was doing research and writing "Planting Design Illustrated." I loved it. It has many great photos to illustrate garden design. It is a collection of garden design done by Penelop Hobhouse and her partner. It enlightens you and encourages you to look at a design issue at a detail scale. Very good images. It'll show you how brilliant human beings can be.
   
   Penelop Hobhouse is one of the best writers on gardening and garden design, her books always have great print quality and very nice color photos. No offence, she is also one of the great people that dare to call a garden a garden, not "landscape." She is actually talking about landscape design issues, but she prefers to use the term garden or gardens and make her book closer to ordinary people. As a design professional, I love her books also.



2. I've had this book for several years now and keep coming back every year as an old faithful source of planning inspiration. Beautifully illustrated with plans for many scenarios. Many of the books written by or about English gardens are beatiful to look at but don't stand much of a chance at being reproduced in the typical suburban garden. Hobhouse has, in my opinion, shown us extraordinary gardens, gorgeously photographed, along with plans that can actually be implemented in your garden. I've got a library of garden books, some serving as inspiration and some serving as pure tools (almanacs, etc.) - this is by far the best inspirational garden book I own.



3. Hobhouse's book combines the look of a coffee table book with the practicality of a manual with her many varied garden design examples. Each design has an explanation followed with outstanding photos. However, the best part is that she illustrates in plan how her plants are grouped so that the beginning gardener can learn about spatial concepts while also about plant placement, color, texture, etc. This is a thorough, but not overwhelming design source and guide that is both useful and inspiring.