Gardengal48, I have been reading through "Plant-Driven Design", very informative book and yes I am reading it a second time, lots of good stuff in this book to absorb. So in its essence I do understand the PDD concept of gardening design. However authors insight on gardening/landscaping are excellent regardless of design/style. This is the exactly the kind of book I am requesting suggestions for. Bahia, your suggestion of reading the authors points and then studying the points made in the specific photos is excellent. In the PDD there is content specific to their photos, not all books are created as thoughtfully. I now understand why my previously mentioned drifts looked odd after reading the authors observations as to why so many gardeners fail at this. In this book they show proper drifts and explained them well. To answer Nandinas curiosity I have done searches via Internet on "how to plan a landscape", I started searching garden planning, garden design, gardening, landscaping, designing etc. I have searched the forum, then I started searching for books, perhaps it is the natural progression of learning to return to books. Most of the internet search pertained to how to draw the plan, figuring out the three Fs of each area of your landscape, analyzing site location, expense, time frames, hardscaping, preplanned gardens or the usual suburban foundation plantings. Fine Gardening does rank in alot of those searches. With that said, Internet was a good place to start. I know what I want to accomplish, know how to draw a scale plan, divided up projects into stages of progress (due to expense) and know how much effort and expense I am willing to put into the garden yearly and have been simply experimenting with plants zoned for my area. I go through the ones that thrive (not just survive)and decide as to whether or not we love it and why. The results lead toward the next experimental plants and so on. It may be best to find (using Google images) a famous garden/landscape I love and hopeful the designer or someone has written about the designers process of creating the garden/landscape. I know the lovely natural gardens the PDD authors do so well, is not quite what I have in mind, but I am enjoying reading their thoughts, experiences and decision process of creating the gardens. Drtygrl and frankie thank you for the additional suggestions, I will be looking into to those as well. Again I do appreciate all reading suggestions as I figure out my "style".

The Book of Garden Design by John Brookes has a lot of information you won't find in most design books intended for the homeowner. It may be out of print, but you can buy used copies online. Some of the plants he describes are only hardy to zone 7, as he is gardening in the UK, but there are also many that will do well in colder zones. His explanations of using a pattern or grid for layout, mass and scale, layering, and relating a design to the house are very useful. It doesn't tell you how to make compost or build anything, but there are a million books that cover those topics. There are many others that you can use for inspiration rather than an explanation of how to put a design together. Buying used books is a good way to put together a library without spending so much that you feel bad about the occasional dud.

saypoint: You make a very valid point for not designing on the fly and I'm making a note of all of those variables to work in our plan upfront. When I worked with an architect for our home remodel, my DH and I did much of the "design" ourselves--just by knowing our existing home and lifestyle and looking at similar homes in the neighborhood and open houses. I literally spent hours driving around the neighborhood taking pictures of houses with architectural features that I liked,poured over magazine and tore out photos and tweaked my designs on graph paper and design software. The outside leaves me stumped how to graph it out as I can't divide it up like I did the house: i.e. kitchen, master bath, etc. I do have a set of plans with property dimensions which is a place to start. I'd even be willing to get some landscape design software (as long as it's not too complex) so I could create elevations--something the designer wouldn't even do. I'm probably most challenged with the backyard--which could be another option to have someone design that and not the front--as the front yard I get lots of ideas from the neighborhood and it's more of a public space. It's pretty much dominated by a huge Sycamore tree and we know we want the pathway to arch from the driveway to the entry and then over to the opposite side yard where we plan to add a gate and bike shed behind the gate. The softscape has always been a challenge between having a northern exposure and the shade from the Sycamore tree--but that is phase 2 in my mind. It's in the backyard, we have the retaining wall and are planning a more complex/$$ patio, possible arbor, rear back area for a patio swing, side yard to have a raised vegetable bed, plus bike/garden shed. Lots going on--without even getting into the softscape. Many of the architects we met with did not impress me with their creativity and though we worked closely with two, they were more in terms of specifying the construction details for our design. Same was true of our kitchen and I did lots of reseach on the kitchen forum and gots lots of valuable feedback in the process. Right now, I'm in the fact gathering stage; though we're also on a time schedule since our patio is so chopped up right now and the kids are tracking in dust and dirt on my new floors. Most pressing is that I have to finalize our exterior paint choice--which is why we've been focusing on hardscape materials to get a feeling for the overall hardscape color scheme.

The internet is always a good place to check though I have found some errors in material on some sites. [Moral of the story is try to double check info whenever possible.] There doesn't seem to be much in the way of current literature out there, unfortunately. But some books that have been found by forum members are: "Terrariums & Miniature Gardens"(Sunset-1974) The gardens are mostly bottles. Good description of how to make one. "Fun with Terrarium Gardening" by:Virginie & George A. Elbert (1973) There are some dry terrariums in this book (cacti) And some ideas like a coffee table and a dining room table w/ a terrarium in it. The pictures in this book are nice, some are in color. "The Savage Garden" Considered by many to be the definitive text on growing carnivorous plants. "Tarantulas and Other Arachnids" Samuel D.Marshall ISBN# : 0-7641-1463-8 It has a really good section about building housing for tarantulas, temp., humidity, substrate, with or without plants.