The Essential Garden Design Workbook guides the reader through every stage of planning a garden — how to survey a site, how to choose landscaping materials, and how to develop planting schemes. This fully revised and updated second edition features new U.S. case studies and new photographs. Valuable tips on green gardening are new to this edition, and include how to harvest rainwater, how to design a green roof, tips on sustainable planting, and a guide to composting. Tailor-made for hands-on gardeners, the workbook approach is accessible, practical, and can be used to create a garden from scratch and to redesign an existing garden. Gardeners will find easy ways to measure large spaces, estimate the height of a tree, and find the right proportions for a deck. They'll also find tips on space, light, and color. Includes hundreds of easy-to-follow line drawings and diagrams.

Step-by-step guide to creating garden designs that includes instructions for blueprints, using patterns, and measuring.

Before picking up the trowel, pick up the stickers! With 150 reusable illustrated stickers — representing dozens of plant cultivars that are versatile, readily available, and suitable for most temperate growing zones — plus a fold-out design board and a book teaching five easy steps of garden design, you’ll have everything you need to create your vision of the perfect garden. The durable cling stickers, with beautiful botanically accurate illustrations, can be layered, arranged, and rearranged to try out every variation before making any plant purchases. This book-and-kit combination makes it possible to create your dream border, bed, or backyard oasis without leaving your kitchen table!

In a time of climate change and mass extinction, how we garden matters more than ever: “An outstanding and deeply passionate book.” —Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals Plenty of books tell home gardeners and professional landscape designers how to garden sustainably, what plants to use, and what resources to explore. Yet few examine why our urban wildlife gardens matter so much—not just for ourselves, but for the larger human and animal communities. Our landscapes push aside wildlife and in turn diminish our genetically programmed love for wildness. How can we get ourselves back into balance through gardens, to speak life's language and learn from other species? Benjamin Vogt addresses why we need a new garden ethic, and why we urgently need wildness in our daily lives—lives sequestered in buildings surrounded by monocultures of lawn and concrete that significantly harm our physical and mental health. He examines the psychological issues around climate change and mass extinction as a way to understand how we are short-circuiting our response to global crises, especially by not growing native plants in our gardens. Simply put, environmentalism is not political; it's social justice for all species marginalized today and for those facing extinction tomorrow. By thinking deeply and honestly about our built landscapes, we can create a compassionate activism that connects us more profoundly to nature and to one another.

A unique and handsome book for novice and professional gardeners. The plans, with full commentary and plant lists, offer a wide range of designs easily adapted to one's own needs.

Designing a garden is a complex task. Where do you start? What kind of skills do you need? What are the logical steps in creating a design? How do you communicate your ideas to a client, and how do you accommodate a client’s requests while maintaining the integrity of the project? The answers to these questions, and many more, can all be found in Understanding Garden Design. Most books on garden design focus on only one or a few aspects of garden design—choosing plants or creating a hardscape, for example. This comprehensive, accessible book lays out the entire process from start to finish in clear, precise language that avoids the pitfalls of “designspeak.” In fact, garden owners and clients of garden designers who want to understand more about the designer’s craft will be able to profit from the book’s lessons. Among the many topics covered are how to document a site, how to determine what a client needs and wants from the garden, how to take architectural features into consideration, how to think about circulation and lay out paths, how to use basic design principles, how to work with plants, and how to create a final design. Practical aspects are clearly laid out, including working with contractors and staying on top of the various phases of construction. This thorough handbook is profusely illustrated with helpful photographs and diagrams. A particularly interesting tool is the hypothetical garden plan that appears in each chapter to show how to apply the topics at hand. A practical, logical approach to the planning, design, and installation of a garden, this volume will be an invaluable resource for students, landscape professionals, and garden designers.

For years Garden Design magazine has been bringing its unique vision of the garden to a smart, savvy readership through its lush, arrestingly beautiful photography and thought-provoking, informative articles. Now Garden Design captures this wisdom and style in a book that delights the senses and enriches the mind. This book of visions for the new gardener. The man or woman who -- like most of us -- longs to create a special place within the world of nature. Step-by-step, from essential design elements to offbeat flourishes, from the all-important conception of an overarching design plan (the hallmark of a successful garden, be it minimal and Japanese in style or an exuberant English countryside profusion of color and shape) to the basics of planting and cultivating, from the habits and personalities of both rare and common plants to suggestions on the best ways to make the most of limited growing space (crucial to land-deprived city dwellers). Cheryl Merser and the editors of Garden Design magazine explain the new garden: What is it, exactly? And what makes it grow? From first seed to first frost -- season after season -- The Garden Design Book takes us through the sometimes complex, sometimes blessedly simple, but always rewarding experience that is gardening.