The flowers are blossoming, the foliage looks fantastic, and the plant combinations are gorgeous. So why doesn't your garden satisfy? The problem just might be a lack of hardscaping--structures like arbors, paving, walls, fountains, pools, and decks that delineate, ornament, animate, and add dimensionality to a garden. Using both his own and others' layouts, a top garden designer reveals why these structures are so important and how to incorporate them into the landscape. Each chapter examines a specific principle (creating ...
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The flowers are blossoming, the foliage looks fantastic, and the plant combinations are gorgeous. So why doesn't your garden satisfy? The problem just might be a lack of hardscaping--structures like arbors, paving, walls, fountains, pools, and decks that delineate, ornament, animate, and add dimensionality to a garden. Using both his own and others' layouts, a top garden designer reveals why these structures are so important and how to incorporate them into the landscape. Each chapter examines a specific principle (creating balance, instilling motion, establishing focal points), and features illuminating discussions of style, function, application, and plantings, as well as magnificent projects. Bring fresh life to a garden with a curvaceous patio with a rill, a sculpture plinth on a terraced platform, or a Victorian room. A Selection of the Homestyle Book Club.
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This book excels in its category because it pictures "before" yards and states why they lack interest and style. Reasons are given with "after" pictures for why these are attractive, besides fulfilling desired function (privacy, walking, inviting, socializing, etc.). Inspired fencing and walkways. Filled with photographs, and a few diagrams for building low walls. Pictures show with and without ornamental additions to prove improvement with hardscaping. Designs are natural and artful; there are no symmetrical English gardens here. They use lush plantings suitable in locations with plentiful water, or unpotable gardening water, or morning mists and fogs. Book was published in 2006 before global droughts, so more drought-tolerant plants that impart the same impressions will likely need to be substituted for those listed.