Listing the authors as well as the titles would be helpful.

The gardens featured in "The Abundant Garden" are all on Bainbridge Island (Seattle area), so it'd be interesting to see how relevant the plant recommendations are for gardeners in places such as Guelph.

The design concepts and the nine elements of "abundance" outlined in this text have only a very tertiary relationship to plant selection. Why we must focus on plant choices as the backbone or primary element of garden design continues to confuse me. It is only one of the factors and IMO, a not so essential one and also one that is extremely easily modified to fit specific circumstances and locations. Design concepts and how they are intrepreted and applied exist independent of specific plant selection.

I tend to agree with Pam but wonder if we don't belong to a very small minority. If you have ever spent time in a garden center, you see a constant flow of people who obviously fail to make that mental transition. Many will come in with clipping-in-hand from some magazine article featuring a distant garden. The growing conditions are not even vaguely similar and yet this consumer demands THAT plant with their finger pointing to an area of the article's photo. Nothing else. No substitution will do!

One only needs to skim the postings on this forum and see that design is too often perceived as a plant-centric endeavor. The most often asked question is, "What should I plant?" I wish that Pam's insight was a little more common.

IronBelly

I can see Eric's point...though I guess he does specifically say "plant recommendations". It is likely that many of the general concepts found in a Bainbridge Island garden would not translate to an Arizona garden. Then to a lesser extent many of the concepts may not translate to a garden found in the Carolinas or Dakotas. That is my beef with many of the books out of England. Plant selection is one thing but they generally show a garden style that just does not translate well to my garden...or at least to my tastes.

I have to admit that I have not read "The Abundant Garden", but I will have to track down a copy. Is that the full name of book #2?

I am a huge fan of Gordon Hayward so I would list "The Intimate Garden" as my favorite garden book with "Your House, Your Garden" also being a very good book. "Home Landscaping: Mid-Atlantic Region" by Roger Holmes and Rita Buchanan is a book that really helped me get started. I still thumb through this book for ideas and information on plants.

I tend to forget the bad books, but I have to say that the books from Tim Newbury did not impress me too much. He seems to have a handful of books with different titles but that are basically the same book. He also seems to pack even the small garden designs full of hundreds of different plants.

- Brent

One man's/woman's brilliant author is another's drone. lol
While Brent adores Gordon Hayward, I find him pedantic and stiff. In "The Welcoming Garden," his writing grates on my sensibilities with his seeming "do as I say now, understand why later" that sounds just a little bit superior and condescending.

In person, he seems like a nice person -- I saw him signing books at last year's New England Grows tradeshow in Boston, Mass. -- but his writing doesn't come across that way.

I do like some of the books by Keith Davitt, particularly "Small Spaces, Beautiful Gardens," which is essentially a display of his landscaping design work, but with explanations of how he pulled off his feats of converting dinky spaces into lush garden spaces. But, I found "Hardscaping," a more recent book by Davitt, to be short on how-to-do-it details. In this case, being more of a showcase of his landscape design work had the effect of being annoying. He offered diagrams of stone walls and walkways, but gave no information on how deep to make their footings, or other important details.

I also enjoyed John Brookes' "Garden Masterclass," though he never loses an opportunity to express his dislikes or likes for various methods or works. Sometimes opinionated writings are fun, sometimes they are irritating.

If a person reads books to learn stuff but instead swallows what they read whole, then they will have a problem with regurgitation. Almost everything, including the mysterious "#2 "The Garden ....." will have something to teach us. Whatever is learned from books, good or bad will only be half the story because
how relevant are the Seattle plant recommendations for gardeners in places such as Guelph (liberties taken with what eric wrote). There seems to be a reluctance to read the classics in a search for an acceptable interpretation of those classics by a TV guru or someone with a good writing style.
Is a good design book one that tells you to plant a certain shrub against a south facing wall regardless of whether you live in Glasgow or Chicago or one that traces an outline and provides nough information for you to fill in the details. Personally I am fed up with any design book that assumes I must be beginner and feels it should show me what pencil to buy and how to draw a straight line on graph paper.

Unfortunately for the advanced designer, the majority of books that come out for the general trade are aimed toward beginners. That's because beginners and DIY newbies constitute the largest available market, and publishers are watching the bottom line.

Scholarly or at least sophisticated writings are not profitable and thus are relegated to academe or to the publications produced by landscape and horticulatural organizations for their membership.

That reminds me of a recent trip to the bookstore. I have taken the slow housing market as an opportunity to become a landlord. I hit the real estate section looking for a book with advice and maybe legal info on managing a rental property. Let me see..."How to Make Millions in Real Estate"..."Strike it Rich in Real Estate with NO MONEY DOWN"..."The NO FAIL Guide to Become a Millionaire"...I was starting to see a pattern. In the two shelves of real estate books I found two that directly related to managing rental properties.

- Brent

"Why we must focus on plant choices as the backbone or primary element of garden design continues to confuse me."

You may want to take that up with the book's authors. According to amazon.com the book "Includes specific plant recommendations". People buy design books with that in mind, and many authors diagram complex border planting schemes in case you want to copy them exactly, though the appeal of precisely imitating someone else's design confuses me.

In other ways regional differences in climate or tastes may make a significant difference in the applicability of design recommendations. Someone in a mild zone might promote plantings in gaps in a slate pathway, which wouldn't work so well in a snowy climate where shoveling such a path would be impeded. And while I like reading British books dealing with garden design, I don't have either the picturesque ancient buildings to serve as backdrop, or the staff to maintain the gardens (many Brit authors hold National Trust-style gardens up as examples).

"The Abundant Garden" may well have enough useful information for non-Pac NW gardeners to justify its purchase. In general I prefer gardening books written by people who either live in or have experience gardening in climates roughly comparable to my own.

You might have included the complete statement from Amazon:
"Includes specific plant recommendations and practical recommendations that will address the needs of gardeners across the country."

My point was why the need to focus on the specific plantings as single most important feature of what this book may offer to the exclusion of the other elements of "abundance" that it outlines.

I find this attitude all too common. And perhaps it is just a matter of interpretation. Eric makes references to "gardening" books, while the topic is more specifically garden "design" books. And I think there is a big difference. Even those British garden design books have design principles revealed in them that are appropriately transplanted to smaller, more urban and less grounded-in-historic-location gardens. The elements and principles of garden design have very little to do with the size of the property involved or the staff one has to maintain it. And while it may be appropriate to peruse books on gardening that are more regionally relevent as well to get specific plant suggestions and growing tips, books that focus on design principles and elements transcend a specific locale. These exist independently from location and have relevence regardless of where you garden.

"My point was why the need to focus on the specific plantings as single most important feature of what this book may offer to the exclusion of the other elements of "abundance" that it outlines.

I find this attitude all too common."

Where you won't find it is in this thread, as no one has stated that plant selection is the most important part of a book on garden design, or that it must be focused on to the exclusion of everything else.
You have only to read a variety of gardening literature (including popular magazines) to get a sense of how regional identity and experience are important in influencing the applicability of an author's suggestions (publishers often claim universality where it does not exist in practice).
In my previous post I mentioned regional differences in areas such as climate which affect the success of various designs. One might also add the availability of materials that are common or cheaply available in some locales but not in others (one example from early in my gardening career was when I realized that I was not going to be able to emulate the guys in The Victory Garden and make use of salt marsh hay for mulch).

It is ironic how miffed some folks get when reminded that most of us find plants to be the key element in a garden. :)

Eric, since your original comment in this thread was limited to an observation on how relevent the plant recommendations would be elsewhere, your focus appears to be obvious. The lack of any opinion on anything else it might provide seems to speak for itself.

And I can't help but feel you are confusing gardening techniques with design principles. The principles of design - as they are generally understood - apply to any of the visual arts and are therefore not limited to gardening and by extrapolation, the plants themselves. Climate only affects a design in how the elements are used to solve the problems of that specific location - the principles remain the same.

It's ironic how miffed some folks get when they mistake gardening for garden design.

I feel like I've wandered into the Strawman Festival.

It's also a bit bizarre that you claim I have no opinion on anything but plant selection, but then attempt in the very next sentence to refute the relevance of my comment about regional differences in the availability and use of design elements other than plants.

If I earned your ire by seeming to diss a design book written by PNW-based authors and this is a solidarity thing, let me assure you that I have no specific opinion about the book pro or con - but was merely suggesting that those planning gardens in vastly different climates need to look out for applicability to their region before investing in such a book.

Regarding my earlier comment about problems with many British books dealing with garden design, a good example is Penelope Hobhouse's A Book of Gardening (Ideas-Methods-Designs). There are a number of interesting and potentially useful ideas detailed in the book, but the examples cited and accompanying photographs are entirely of National Trust gardens. For example, if one wants to learn about the design and use of parterres, walls, and various ornamental features one is directed to examples in massive estate-type settings like Powis Castle, Mottisfont Abbey et al. The photos are nice (and make the book worth the $6 I paid for it on massive markdown), but the discussions would be far more relevant if the designs extolled included relatively small, middle-class gardens and offered realistic examples for inspiration. (the book, incidentally, offers considerable discussion of the suitability of particular plants and includes plant lists - oops!).
This doesn't mean that British garden design books don't have anything to offer or that the average British gardener doesn't do a fine job working on a limited scale - but American authors generally avoid this temptation to focus on Gardens of the Rich and Famous (or Royal).

I guess I'll wade into this one by saying I think there is much we can learn about design from great British gardens--or American or other gardens on the grand scale. There are many small vignettes that are useful from a design point of view in these gardens and, more importantly, many design principles that are valid no matter the size of the space.

Most people with any interest in gardening are focused on plants and horticulture. It is a minority, in my experience, who move on to design, and even fewer who start there. That said, I've seen some pretty awful gardens/landscapes designed by artists and architects with no knowledge of plants. Horticulture is a critical body of knowledge in successful landscape design, IMHO.

well said, ginny, bravo!!!

Very true Ginny.

I made the point last year here, with out much success, that most people don't really need good design since they can't really tell when they see it. They just like to look at pretty plants.

I don't have a problem with books that mention the plants in pictures, but I do have a problem with books that have a title like " Garden Design ...." and then are nothing more than a list of plants.

There are also the books about "Hardscape design" that say little about design and a lot about how to lay bricks.

One of the reason I like the "The Abundant Garden" is that is spends a lot of time talking about WHY and not WHAT to plant.

Come, come, come... Let's not be silly here. "...most people don't really need good design since they can't really tell when they see it." I beg to differ.

That is like saying people who can't read music don't appreciate good music when they hear it. While it may be true that they do not fully understand music theory and/or have the ability to create or articulate it themselves, recognition happens none the less.

Does this also mean that I could not possibly appreciate the Mona Lisa because I know nothing about painting?

IronBelly

No one is disputing the value that horticultural knowledge contributes to garden design - it is an essential element and one of the primary reasons why my clients seek out a professional. But the point I was trying to make - and that seems to have been ignored or overlooked - is that design principles exist and remain relevent regardless of setting. Large English estate or small suburban garden, the lush and mild climate of the PNW or a sere desert setting, the materials or specific elements may change but design is design and those principles of composition, scale, proportion, balance, texture, repetition, et al, ad nauseum still apply. If one is reading a landscape design book simply to obtain plant selections or that is all they are able to get out of it, then I believe they are wasting their time and effort.

Ironbelly - exactly right - you can enjoy Mona Lisa even though you know nothing about painting. You can also enjoy a painting that the art community would consider a poor painting. In fact paintings are a good example similar to garden design. A lot of people enjoy art, but few really know much about it - including me - but I know what I like. I don't need to know anything about art to enjoy it.

Wow. Interesting thread. Since this book thread has morphed into a general conversation on garden design I just wanted to share my recent experience with hiring a garden design professional. My husband, family, & friends thought I was nuts because I have been a professional floral designer most of my life, & have all that good stuff going for me: sense of proportion, balance, texture, color, etc. However, I have been gardening in containers all my life & have been able to rearrange things as they matured or changed to create pleasing compositions. When I bought my first house & it came time to plant things in the ground, I was seized with fear. All of a sudden I realized that ultimate landscape size, and the happiness of a plant in it's permanent position was critically important.

The person I hired was excellent. He liked a lot of what I had done & worked from that. He suggested shapes more than specific plants, although he had a few plant suggestions. And some of his ideas surprised me. Things I wouldn't have thought of. A lot of it was based on classic English garden design even though my yard is tiny. It was such a pleasure to plant the first tree, and wake in the morning and realize not only did I see it out the living room window but I could see it from out my bedroom's french doors. He had thought of that! And having a design plan that said "deciduous tree here up to 25' high, or tall narrow conifer here up to 12' high" left my brain free to focus on the plant that would ultimately fulfill the design goal, and thrive in it's location.

When I was a floral designer I had friends who were too snobby to do funeral work. As if this momentous occasion were above them. Well good design is good design, as I think several of you have pointed out, even it's resting atop a casket.

So I guess what I'm saying is good design is important but also hard. Even for those of us trained in it. And the plants do matter. Without the right plant in the right spot the design doesn't come together. And even if you think you know what you're doing it's always great to have another set of eyes.

"I don't need to know anything about art to enjoy it." Well maybe but it is possible that if you knew something about it you would enjoy it more, also if you ever thought you might want to paint something yourself learning the tools and the techniques would help you get over the finger painting stage. Now this is the same whatever the art and unless we inform ourselves we are likely to make choices because of influences we are not aware of.

When it comes to aesthetic design, maybe it's true that "what you don't know won't hurt you" and "I know what I like when I see it," and "As long as I like it, it's okay." But, out of mercy for passersby who do have aesthetic sensitivity, it might be a good idea to design the publicly-visible parts of one's property in a way that is in keeping with the prinicples of good design.

One thing I like about Gordon Hayward is that he talks about how to look at a garden to identify the design principles at work - how to see beyond the specific plants and understand what it is about the garden that makes you like (or dislike) it. That's really useful for those of us without design backgrounds.

When I'm shopping for garden design books, I start by flipping to the back of the book to see if there's an "encyclopedia of plants" section. If there is, an dif it's more that a couple of pages, the book goes back on the shelf, because it's obviously not a design book. Publishers seem to think that these plant guides are what sells, but I'm instigating a campaign to disabuse them.

plant guides sell because people want that information. I buy gardening books that are about how to garden-- not what to put in the garden or where to put it. But what to do when and how to do it. I buy plant guides to find out what to plant and where it will grow best. I buy design books that help me plan where to site plants or how to plan the effect that i want or have seen. publishers tend to market books that include all three of these because that is what is most useful to people buying them.

Interesting thread. I had just been thinking about wanting some more garden / landscape design books that talk more about design theory than simply being gardening books or about certain styles. I've read a number of books on "how to plan your backyard" types that go through the whole thing from figuring out what you want, putting together a plan, selecting plantings, etc. But, not many that actually focus on what I would consider Design Theory, as Pam was talking about.

One of my favorite books, which isn't really a theory book, is Wrightscapes, by Charles and Berdean Aguar. It describes and analyzes many of FLLW's landscapes (done by him or his associates or LA's independently). I found it quite fascinating how some of the homes were incredibly integrated with the landscapes, while others (ahem) weren't. But, especially how he used axis and vistas and site geometries to extend the interiors to the exterior.

(I don't think I ever did a formal intro here. I'm an architect by profession, gardener by avocation, garden designer for myself. I sometimes do the landscapes for the buildings I design, though it is usually for commercial buildings, with relatively simple plantings. I've worked with LA's, as well. Sometimes I dream of getting a LA degree, but don't think I want to invest the time and $$$ at this stage of my life.)

(And yes, sometimes architects do landscape plans without knowing anything whatsoever about the plants. My first landscape plan was assigned by my previous boss, and I had no clue what to do! Fortunately, I got the advice to get a copy of Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs, which I have used quite a bit. I also tend to focus on flowers, but some gentle nudging from another architect/gardener friend has helped me look more at foliage and shape.)