GardenDesignOnline

Books: Classic Italian Gardens

There is something about a black and white photograph that conveys a certain kind of emotional response that you never get with a color image.

Now, for the first time in decades, some of the most beautiful and important images ever taken of Italian gardens are available once again in Italian Gardens: Romantic Splendor in the Edwardian Age with text by Helena Attlee and photographs by Charles Latham (Monacelli Press, 2009).

In the early 1900's Latham was a photographer for Country Life Magazine in England (still published today), and they sent him on a journey to Italy to photograph the country's finest gardens.   He took along a large format camera and glass-plate negatives -- and because of their weight, he took only one carefully composed shot of each view, estimating his exposures as he went.

Country Life published a book with his photos in 1905, and a review in The Guardian said the book was "profusely illustrated with some of the finest photographs we have ever seen." And judging by the new book, that is certainly an understatement. The new book is in 9.75 x 11 inch format, and the larger-than-normal size beautifully illustrates the light and shadow and all tones in between that Latham captured in such a brilliant manner.

You may have seen pictures of Villa Lante, but nothing like the ones published in this book.  Latham's work leaves out nothing: it includes the water and the statuary, the architecture and the plantings in simply amazing detail.

In all, the book has photos of 22 central Italian gardens from those at the Vatican to Villa Falconieri in Frascati, the Boboli gardens in Florence, and the Villa Medici in Rome.  While many of the gardens pictured have been restored (at least in part), some of them, sadly, have been lost forever -- except in this photographic record.

If you've been to Italy or are planning a trip, the book is an invaluable resource.  But even if you can't go to Italy, you can take an unforgettable trip with this lovely volume.

(click on text link to purchase book from Amazon)

Books: The Way to Live Outside

Every time there's a new book from celebrated landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy, I tell myself and my readers that it's my favorite one. I truly didn't think she could top Outside the Not So Big House,  but her new book is surely the one that every homeowner and would-be designer has to have on their bookshelf.

In Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love (Taunton Press, 2009), Messervy gives you all the tools you need to analyze your landscape and bring it to life. In the book, Messervy reveals how any property owner can create "a welcoming front yard, a backyard that feels like an oasis, a place outside to entertain, a contemplative area, and a way to 'flow' effortlessly throughout the house and landscape."

She outlines many of the techniques that landscape designers use to turn run-of-the-mill properties into magnificent outdoor havens, using plants for color, texture and impact, and selecting the right materials.  She's even devised a design test to help you design a garden that fits your personality. (Something all designers try to do without talking about it explicitly).

The "before and after" photos in this book illustrate all of her main concepts very clearly, and the images themselves will give you tons of ideas to use and adapt in your own front or back yard, no matter where you live.

The final chapter is a case study of a small New Jersey garden that demonstrates the book's main ideas.  Messervy walks you through all the methods used by landscape architect Nick Cavaliere to fashion an outdoor space that looks just like a cottage in the woods.  As Messervy puts it, "the owner of this house was able -- over time -- to transform a nondescript landscape into his own true pleasure ground."  With this book in hand, anyone will be able to do the same.

(click on text link to purchase book).

Parts of this review previously appeared in The American Gardener magazine.

Books: Gardens & Humanity

From the beginning of time, humans have inextricably been linked to gardens.  In his new book, Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition (University of Chicago Press, 2008), author Robert Pogue Harrison, professor of Italian literature at Stanford University, examines the human need for gardens.  "For millennia and throughout world cultures," he says, "our predecessors conceived of human happiness in its perfected state as a garden existence."And without a doubt, many of us feel exactly the same way today.

Pogue writes about Greek and Italian gardens, the Garden of Eden and gardens of homeless people in New York City.  He reminds us that history "has no memory" of most of the gardens that have "graced the earth," but he notes that "apart from a few lofty exceptions," gardens don't exist to "immortalize their makers or defy the ravages of time," but rather "to reenchant the present."

The book surveys continents and centuries, and draws upon writings about gardens from Epicurus and Homer to Dante and Boccaccio, Edith Wharton to Camus, TS Eliot and Shirley Hazzard.  It's a daunting world tour of nature and perception, and the creativity that goes into garden making and appreciation.

You'll discover entire literary worlds about gardens, right down to Harrison's epilogue about Malcolm Lowry's novel, Under the Volcano. If you're a gardener or a garden designer, this book will reaffirm why you do what you love.  And even if you're not into gardening, it'll make you think about why you love to walk through a park or forest, walk down a street filled with stately trees, or admire a simple bloom in a neighbor's front garden. 

(click on link to purchase book)

Books: Soils & Sustainable Gardens

With all the interest these days in sustainability and in vegetable gardens, the latest All-Region Guide from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is coming along at just the right time.

Healthy Soils for Sustainable Gardens (Brooklyn Botanic Garden 2009) is the latest in this masterful series of handbooks on all kinds of gardening subjects.

Soil seems to be one of those great mysteries to many gardeners, and it's particularly difficult for novices. This book unravels the riddles about making and using compost; mulching and fertilizing; understanding soil pH; and determining whether your soil is acidic or alkaline, clayey, sandy, or just right.

The best thing of all is that this book is written in an easy, understandable style so that gardeners will get the point about using their common sense in the garden.  In the chapter on mulch, Janet Marinelli explains that "When it comes to mulching ... I try to think like a forest."  In other words, folks, think about the natural layers of leaves and other organic matter that litter the forest floor  ... that is mulch at its most natural and best.

In the chapter on soil ecology, Niall Dunne notes that all gardeners should have their soil tested, and once the results are in, they can either amend it as necessary or simply grow plants that will thrive in those conditions -- and there are always some of those.

Best of all, the book concentrates on organic solutions to promote and maintain healthy soils. There are great lists in the book of plants for specific kinds of soils -- as well as solutions for gardening on slopes and in raised beds.  The book includes tips for specific plants, including shrubs and perennials, vegetables, annuals, roses and lawns. 
It's a must-have reference for anyone who wants garden without chemicals, and that should include all of us who love gardens.

(click on text link to purchase book)

Best Garden Books of 08

The American Horticultural Society has announced the winners of its annual garden book awards.

Hardy Succulents: Tough Plants for Every Climate by Gwen Kelaidis (Storey Publishing, 2008). See my review here.

The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table: Recipes, Portraits, and History of the World's Most Beautiful Fruit by Any Goldman (Bloomsbury USA, 2008)

Plant-Driven Design: Creating Gardens That Honor Plants, Place, and Spirit by Scott Ogden and Lauren Springer Ogden (Timber Press, 2008)

Native Ferns, Moss, and Grasses: From Emerald Carpet to Amber Wave, Serene and Sensuous Plants for the Garden by William Cullina (Houghton Mifflin, 2008).  See my review here. (And I can attest this is a fabulous book).

Special Merit Citations went to two others:
The Garden Primer: Second Edition by Barbara Damrosch (Workman Publishing, 2008). See my review here.

Herbaceous Perennial Plants: A Treatise on Their Identification, Culture, and Garden Attributes by Allan M. Armitage(Stipes Publishing, 2008).

Enjoy! (and maybe next year I'll do my own list!).

The Real Deal about Perennials

There's no author of gardening books who says things better than William Cullina, who is currently at work as plant and garden curator at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden, the largest in New England.

It's a book you'll treasure not only for the clarity of the writing about what can be a difficult subject, but also for its provocative ideas. In Understanding Perennials: A New Look at an Old Favorite, Cullina smashes many old gardening myths.

In a paragraph entitled "I Want Them All," he politely urges us to abandon the much-favored English garden.

"We have inherited much of our gardening tradition from Victorian England, where gardens were awash in fabulous new plants from every corner of the empire. The name of this gardening game was to assemble and grow as many different plants as you could, regardless of their origin," he says.  Cullina reminds us that a garden of this type requires super-rich soil, a lot of water and fertilizer, greenhouses, cloches, pesticides and other harmful chemicals, plus pruning, staking and pampering.  "It is certainly not a very environmentally sustainable approach," says Cullina, "and it is a heck of a lot of work.  I get tired just thinking about it (remember that the folks who invented this style had gardeners to do the work for them)."  And to that I say "Amen."

You'll learn everything you need to know about perennials in this book -- what they are, how they grow, how to propagate them, care for them, and most of all, how to enjoy them.

Trendy New Planting Ideas

Landscape designer and author Scott Calhoun traveled all over the country to put his new book together, and it's a magnificent reference for home gardeners and professional designers alike.

The best thing about Designer Plant Combinations (Storey Publishing, 2008) is that each featured garden plan uses a total six plants or less. The chapter subjects direct you exactly where you want to go:  Perennial Partners; Masses of Grasses; Annual Acquaintances; Accent Plant Associates; Ground Cover Groupies; Buddies for Woodies.

As Calhoun explains in the introduction, he firmly believes that plants do matter, despite the fact that recent garden trends concentrate on outdoor living and hardscape.  "I got into this business to work with roots and shoots," he says, "rather than simply promoting the masonry trade."

His philosophy is detailed in every entry of this book.  In "Tweaking the Coneflower," he features a design by 'Lisa Delplace of Oehme, van Sweden Associates at the Chicago Botanic Garden that combines the dwarf coneflower  'Pixie Meadowbrite' with two types of yellow daylilies and 'Big Ears' lamb's ears.  In this entry, Calhoun tells you how to find the dwarf cultivars that go so well in today's small gardens.

Each of the book's design schemes is accompanied by an introduction about the theme, a photo of the full design, a photo and description of each plant, and a paragraph of "designer tips."  In the entry on New Agave and Yucca Frontiers, Calhoun notes in the "designer tips" that rocky outcrops are most convincing when each boulder is submerged one-third below grade; that odd numbers of boulders look best in a planting design; and that nooks and crannies should be built into the design to allow for good drainage. The tips for each entry are well worth noting.

Some of the designs in this book are simply breath-taking, and the subject matter is quite different from what you'll find in similar books.  I particularly liked the monochromatic color scheme featuring coffee-colored plants; and the stunning combination of Mexican feather grass and 'Raspberry Delight' hybrid bush sage.

This book is more than inspiration ... it's a handbook of first-class design ideas that can't help but produce spectacular results.

(click on text link to purchase book)

The Sustainable Hardscaping Bible

In Berkeley, California, Leger Wanaselja Architecture specializes in ecological design.  They used burned (but uncharred) trees from the 1991 Oakland Hills fire as fencing posts for a residential carport; and they fashioned an old truck tailgate into a garden bench. In a Washington DC project, Philadelphia landscape architects Andropogon Associates constructed a deck made from old harbor pilings and benches made from used wine caskets. 

These are just a few of the projects illustrating an exciting new wave in ecological landscape architecture in Materials for Sustainable Sites: A Complete Guide to the Evaluation, Selection, and Use of Sustainable Construction Materials (John Wiley & Sons, 2008) by Meg Calkins, LEED AP. Calkins, with master's degrees in landscape architecture and architecture from the University of California, Berkelely, has long been involved in evaluating sustainable site materials to comply with the US Green Building Council's LEED^TM (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) system.

In this new book, Calkins tells you everything you need to know about materials for sustainable design. She says, for instance, that new "green" materials are not always the answer. Instead, it might be better to use a conventional, tried and true material in a new green way. As Calkins puts it in the introduction, the book will equip the reader with "techniques to evaluate and minimize the environmental and human health impacts of materials and products for a particular clilmate, application, and location."

I liked her "Strategies for Building a Longer-lasting Deck" -- just one page long, the section on designing with reclaimed wood, the "Guidelines for Design and Fabrication of Durable Metal Structures" and specifying bricks from manufacturers who minimize environmental damage.  The book is actually divided into two parts -- the first introduces the tools, techniques, and resources for evaluating and specifying sustainable materials.  The second part of the book devotes separate chapters to both conventional and emerging green materials:  concrete, earthen materials, brick, asphalt paving, aggregates and stone, wood, metals, plastics and rubber.

This book is certain to become the classic reference for all designers and builders who want to pursue creative design in a way that will help protect the planet.

(click on text link to purchase book)

Great Berkshire Gardens

Perhaps because it's called New England, a lot of people expect the gardens in the region to look like what you might find in Britain.  But while the New England landscape is reminiscent of England at times, it is also very much different.  In Great Gardens of the Berkshires (Down East Books, 2008), author Virginia Small and photographer Rich Pomerantz capture the area's great garden traditions as well as its rich diversity.

For each garden she profiles, Small answers one of the great mysteries about garden design:  where designers get their inspiration.  The landscape elements that comprise the gardens at The Mount, the former home of author Edith Wharton, were patterned after English, Italian, and French gardens that she had seen on her travels, but they also reflect the natural features of the New England landscape.

The gardens at Naumkeag, a collaboration between landscape architect Fletcher Steele and his client, Mabel Choate, were inspired by gardens in Spain and France, by the Cubist gardens at the Paris Exhibition of 1925, and by Chinese gardens that Choate and Steele encountered in their travels.

In turn, Lee Link's private modern garden in Sharon, CT, was inspired by Naumkeag, by the naturalistic garden at Innisfree in Millbrook, NY, and by the words of Irish gardener and author Helen Dillon.

Small delves into the creative genius behind the five public gardens included in the book, and she masterfully draws out beautiful, motivational stories about the artistry of the private garden makers she introduces to readers.

Ninety-nine year old Emily Rose has been gardening at Little Sutton in Alford, MA since 1941. Small writes that "the gardens flow with ana undulating rhythm that relfects the property's sloping contours" and says that to "counterbalance the vast openness of much of this awe-inspiring landscape, several spaces offer intimate enclosure."

The contemporary house of Jack Hyland and Larry Wente, says Small, is complemented by "long and narrow axial views that make it seem bigger,"  and by "a bold and effusive planting style" that "pushes against the underlying geometric grid."

Small's talent for description and her long familiarity with plants and design make this book a valuable addition to any avid gardener's library.  Photographs by Rich Pomerantz beautifully illustrate Small's major points and are inspiring in and of themselves.

Most of the private gardens in the book are often open to the public on garden tours sponsored by local organizations or by the Garden Conservancy's Open Days Program.

Everything You Can't Figure Out On Your Own

I was a math whiz in high school, but darned if I can remember all those formulas to figure the area of a trapezoid, a hexagon, an ellipse, and you name it.  Not to mention the irregular landscape features that so many designers encounter every day.  So this handy little book will do it all for you.

Mathematics for the Green Industry: Essential Calculations for Horticulture and Landscape Professionals (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2008) will tell you everything you ever thought you might want to know about calculating areas, volumes, plants per square foot, etc for landscape plans, greenhouse structures, and much, much more.

And there are very useful little tables sprinkled throughout the book that will make your work at the drawing table much, much easier. There's a lot in the book that designers won't need -- fertilizer application rates, turf management, plant growth regulators and the like -- but you might want to take a look at the chapters on estimating landscape costs.  Terrific conversion tables are in the back of the book, along with: YES! the solutions to practice problems just to check the real answers against what you try to do in your head.