Books: Design Class by Top Landscape Masters

One hundred brief essays by landscape architects, designers, horticulturists and garden stylists on everything from restoration and materials to symmetry, space, scale, water, estates, borders, hedges, romance, liberty --  you name it.

In Garden Design Master Class: 100 Lessons from The World's Finest Designers on the Art of the Garden (Rizzoli International, 2020), author Carl Dellatore asked 100 designers for their thoughts on the elements that go into notable gardens. 

You'll know many of the essayists, but you'll meet others with whom you are unfamiliar.  The book is divided into six main themes: theory, process, style, structure, elements, and inspiration. 

Here's just a sampling of what you'll get -- and why you want to have this book in your library.

On the subject of "Ecologies," landscape architect Edmund Hollander notes that there are three that guide his firm's designs:  natural ecology, composed of the site's hydrology, vegetation, geology and soil; architectural ecology, composed of the built landscape; and human ecology, ie, the people who'll live in the landscape.  The combination of these three, he says, "bring life and form to our designs."

Landscape architect Larry Weaner, writing on "Meadows," says "patience and and a thoughtful, ecology-based approach can yield nearly self-sufficient landscapes, unsurpassed in their beauty and wildlife value.  The experience will be worth the wait."

British landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith, in "Liberty," says some gardens are "places where we can experience an intense kind of freedom, losing awareness of the boundaries of ourselves for a moment, and an intense feeling for a place that is perhaps a kind of love.  So I think the idea of individual liberty is at the heart of my appreciation for gardens."

Horticulturist Phillip Watson writes that "Juxtaposition" includes light and shadow, different colors, what's inside and outside the property line. "Whether people or plants," he says, "good companions respect boundaries and don't overrun their mates; some prop up one another from time to time; most enjoy many of the same things; and all are interesting as individuals and enchanting as couples."

Each essay is just one to two pages long, accompanied by beautiful photos of the gardens these masters have designed.  The advice they offer on myriad subjects is advice you'll take to heart and put to excellent use in your own designs.