No comments about Grounds for Pleasure: Four Centuries of the American Garden.

No comments about Ornament in the Small Garden.

1 comments about The Spaces between Buildings (Center Books on Space, Place, and Time).

1. This is really a nice book. It reads very well and gives a good introduction over major landscape elements in urban and suburban. It also includes background information about the historical development of these landscape elements. That makes it quite easy to understand the urban and suburban landscape in the U.S.. It is one of these books that you read and think "aah, that's why...". A good and cheap present for landscape architects and students (nice paper, layout and format, too).

1 comments about Dan Kiley: The Complete Works of America's Master Landscape Architect.

1. Not being that well versed in Kiley-ism, or even being that familiar with his legacy, this book may or may not be an accurate representation. But there is no doubt that this book is an excellent source of inspiration for pulling oneself out of the mundane, everyday rut and realizing that the truly fabulous is possible, and not so out of reach. EXCELLENT photography, and a skillful narrative combined with some of Kiley's sketches, make this a textbook (of sorts) in spite of the ineveitable inclination to place it on a coffee table. Oh, go ahead and buy it. You'll use it.

1 comments about More Spectacular Pools.

1. I am in the process of designing a new back yard with inground pool and spa. I have been reviewing several books to get ideas. If that is what you are looking for - keep looking you won't find much here. This book is more of a photojournal of neo contemporary pools from around the world. It covers about 30 pools (most look the same). The majority of them are very contemporary recatngles with no decks. Just look at the cover - there are 29 more pools that look just like it inside. On the same note these pools are all in million dollar homes and are not very impressive unless you love plain, sleek, rectangular pools with minimal landscaping and concreate decks. Sorry I just didn't get it.

No comments about Managing Healthy Sports Fields: A Guide to Using Organic Materials for Low-Maintenance and Chemical-Free Playing Fields.

No comments about LARE Review Section C Vignettes: Site Design, 2nd Edition.

No comments about Carscape: A Parking Handbook.

2 comments about Desert Landscape Architecture.

1. One of the better things that crossed my desk last month was a copy of a new book by John Krieg titled Desert Landscape Architecture (Saint Lucie Press; ISBN: 1574442252.) Whether you are a homeowner, a contractor, a builder, a wanna-be landscaper or a plant person, you need this book. Desert Landscape Architecture is a hands-on, step-by-step, "How To" book that will save anyone thousands of dollars on their landscape. The section on plants would make a great college text book all by itself. There's a plant compendium with over 750 species listed. John is one of very few authors who consider all of our Southwestern deserts, not just those in his home state of California. Desert Landscape Architecture provides the reader a better understanding of desert environments, climatic conditions and how man-made environments are designed and installed in order to cope with the harsh deserts. Best of all, the book is written in the English language....not full of obscure technical terms known only to Zen Landscape Architects living in Madrid, Spain. With this book, and only this book, you'll learn about deserts, the soils, the plant life, design, basic standards of landscape design, site grading, drainage planning and whew!....much, much, more. Water-saving ideas are found by the barrel-full in the chapter on irrigation. This chapter emphasizes the critical nature of irrigation design and explains it as an environmental necessity, not a technical issue. There are pages and pages of charts which contain the basic information needed by everyone interested in landscape design. This book should be required reading for every Planning and Zoning Department in the Southwest. The author knows which end of the hammer drives the nail and his saw is plugged in and ready to rip. This is a hands-on approach, with hundreds of hints on how to plan ahead and bypass a lot of problems that seem to plaque a landscape job, whether it's on a new site or an existing site that needs refurbishing. John Krieg is a former student of the Dean of Desert Landscaping, Dr, Eric Johnson of Palm Springs, California. I spoke with Eric about John's book and he said: "John is one in a million. He knows his work and best of all, he knows how to write! His book moves right along, without a hitch. It's not just another dry old text book with footnotes in small print. This book will become the Bible of desert landscaping in the future." Sure enough, a glance at the text shows bibliographies set in "jumbo" print and the author has included personal comments on each reference cited. Simply stated, Desert Landscape Architecture is the only book you will ever need to buy. It's an investment that will easily save you several thousand dollars. I am proud to have been among the pre-publication readers of Desert Landscape Architecture. Many times, writers get talked into being a reader and when the suggestions get back to the author they are ignored. Folks, John doesn't play that way...each and every suggestion I made was followed. Ditto for the suggestions made by Eric Johnson. Congratulations, John, you've written a winner!



2. great idealism, finally put in to words, I was a little reluctant on some of the books sources, but found it to be for the most part to be right on.

No comments about Miniature and Panorama: Vogt Landscape Architects, Projects 2000-06.