The Red Garden Review

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The Red Garden ReviewThis story is pure Alice Hoffman magic. She begins the story in 1750 with the settlers who founded the town of Bearsville, MA (name changed to Blackwell in 1786). Every chapter moves the story to another time period concluding sometime in the 2000's. The book reads like a seamless book of short stories, each chapter informing and building on the previous. Hoffman has a gift for sharply focusing on the main character of each time period as she moves the story of this small mountain town along, revealing an inner truth.
Characters come to town, live, leave, die, wander, return but always carry the thread of the town with them. The characters are so beautifully written, it's hard to choose a favorite chapter/story. The two chapters I enjoyed most were "The Principles of Devotion", the story of a loyal dog living at the grave of his owner and the "Monster of Blackwell", a young man who separates himself from society and lives in the mountains outside Blackwell. These chapters are achingly beautiful.
The red garden refers to the founder's (Hallie Brady) garden where the soil is as red as blood and everything that grows in it is red. Perhaps a symbol of life and death; the connection we all have to nature and each other.
Hoffman doesn't go on and on with flowery prose; her writing is edited, beautiful and powerful. She always manages to capture the beauty of a moment and the setting of the story, infusing it with her understanding of humanity.
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Designing the Maine Landscape Review

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Designing the Maine Landscape ReviewThis beautiful book is part storytelling, part travel guide and part historical record and should be loved by anyone who loves Maine. It tells the story of all those places I've seen or driven by a hundred times, plus the hidden jewels that justify a special trip. This book inspires me to get in the car with book in hand to see and understand anew.
Meticulously researched and charmingly told, the book presents vast amounts of detail in a smooth style that keeps you turning page after page to get the next segment of the story. Filled with historical photos and fascinating old postcard views juxtaposed with lovely current photos by photographer Greg Currier.
This book is clearly a labor of love and the product of many, many years of careful research. It provides a public service by preserving the stories while they are still fresh for the benefit of future generations and by inspiring us to preserve and renovate these special Maine places.
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Roof Gardens: History, Design, and Construction (Norton Books for Architects & Designers) Review

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Roof Gardens: History, Design, and Construction (Norton Books for Architects & Designers) ReviewGreenroofs.com inaugurates our new Recommended Readings column with this highly informative reference standard for roof garden aficionados and design professionals alike. While Roof Gardens is clearly focused on the more traditional concept and practice of creating aesthetically pleasing garden space on flat roofs, Mr. Osmundson does address greenroof technology and the industry's advances in the field. In particular, the German market is credited for testing and developing highly effective yet lightweight greenroof components and systems, and case studies are presented.
The veteran landscape architect shares his practical expertise of roof garden design, research and travel, and the richly illustrated hardcover book is full of photos, plans and construction details of sixty projects in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan. Roof Gardens also offers a historical perspective and advice on site considerations, design elements, maintenance, and appendices of useful data and sources of supply and information.
Rooftop landscape architecture promises to greatly beautify our environment by greening our buildings. We highly recommend this easy to understand, invaluable reference for anyone interested learning about in-depth roof garden design and construction, from homeowner to city planner.Roof Gardens: History, Design, and Construction (Norton Books for Architects & Designers) Overview

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Small Buildings, Small Gardens: Creating Gardens Around Structures Review

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Small Buildings, Small Gardens: Creating Gardens Around Structures ReviewI borrowed this book from our library and wow, what a great read! Not only are the photographs beautiful, the text actually says something! So many garden books have great photographs but limited or no text of meaning.
Mr. Hayward does an excellent job of guiding the reader through this book. There are 11 chapters, each approximately 8-12 pages, covering a major type of garden "building" such as: Arbors, Decks, Gazeboes, Sheds, Pergolas, Playhouses, Fences and Gates, Trellises and Bridges.
One of my favorite features is a small box in each chapter entitled "Where to Site a ____" (Garden Shed, Pergola, etc.). The example of a rowboat turned into a garden shed illustrates the whimsy that can be found in some of Hayward's suggestions. It's obvious that he has fun in his garden, and this attitude carries over into this book.
Put your feet up, sit back and enjoy!Small Buildings, Small Gardens: Creating Gardens Around Structures Overview

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Your House, Your Garden: A Foolproof Approach to Garden Design Review

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Your House, Your Garden: A Foolproof Approach to Garden Design ReviewPerhaps going into it...I expected too much!
As a Landscape Designer I'd heard of him often, seminars, lectures etc. but somehow the book wasn't anywhere near as good as I'd hoped.
I'm certain I would have enjoyed the book more if I didn't spend so much time wrestling with the layout. Mr. Hayward goes into great detail about landscaping concepts on a particular project & would generally end up referring to related photos or figures that were often many pages ahead. The going back & forth got really old after awhile...not to mention,extremely frustrating. I think any reader generally appreciates seeing the photos being referred to on the page they are explained.
My other negative about this book was that so much detail seemed to be spent on specific projects that it seemed the author was more preoccupied at times with his clients project & describing things that often weren't even in the photographs or seriously helpful to a designer wanting to learn more. A more preferable approach in my opinion would have been to not fuss about specific client details but glean from the projects the essence or core principles applied & present them in a straight forward, generic fashion.
After reading the entire book slowly & carefully, I would honeslty have to admit I'd hoped to find a vast wealth of practical & easily adaptable gems. Instead I only came away with very limited amount of useful information.
I have not read any of Mr. Hayward's other books..so I may check them out in the library first before buying...perhaps they might be far superior to this one. I still hold to my opinion that he's a brilliant designer...however that doesn't necessariy make him a great writer!
A book I found to be much better is The Landscape Design Answer Book by Jane Bath...Your House, Your Garden: A Foolproof Approach to Garden Design Overview

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The Authentic Garden: Five Principles for Cultivating A Sense of Place Review

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The Authentic Garden: Five Principles for Cultivating A Sense of Place ReviewThis is a wonderful book, and an important one, I think. It explains why some gardens touch us and how that sense of wonder is achieved in compelling gardens and maybe even in our own. It does not tell us what plants to plant or how deep to dig or what amendments to add to our soil. For me, it was a light bulb going on. Oh, so that's why I loved this or that on a garden visit! So that's why one thing or another seemed out of place or discordant. As the author describes and illustrates her five principles, it becomes clear what belongs in a garden and what doesn't and why it doesn't. She explains something about regional differences and indigenous materials and why some things just seem to fit in certain places. An additional bonus for me was that, as a resident of southeastern Pennsylvania, several of the public gardens and aboretums she uses as examples are familiar to me and allowed me to look beyond the photographs and into my own memory of the places she describes. The photos are, I should add, extremely well chosen and well placed within the text to illustrate her points. I have to admit that I borrowed this book from the library, but now I know I need to have it for my own.The Authentic Garden: Five Principles for Cultivating A Sense of Place Overview

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American Eden: From Monticello to Central Park to Our Backyards: What Our Gardens Tell Us About Who We Are Review

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American Eden: From Monticello to Central Park to Our Backyards: What Our Gardens Tell Us About Who We Are ReviewWade Graham's "American Eden" has a wonderful premise: What our gardens tell us about who we are. The book is more a history of American gardens seen somewhat through that lens, but mostly seen through the lens of the upper class' residential landscapes and public spaces, where big money buys grandeur.
The book is decently written and (in it's final form) will be a valuable and colorful guide to anyone interested in the history of landscaping in this country. Note that I did not use the word "gardening" as most of the individuals noted in the book (Roosevelt, Mary Pickford, Vanderbilts, Edith Wharton, Thomas Jefferson, Martha Stewart, et al) did not actually sully their hands in the drudgery of setting up the landscape, so it's not gardening in the real sense of the word. When I say gardening, it means that I am the gardener, do the work and later get the firsthand pleasure of my efforts. Instead, Graham's lineup of who's-who skip the middle part and employ landscape design firms to flesh out their grand schemes. While this particular fact does not stain the premise of the book entirely, it also does not fulfill it. Trying to use Graham's yardstick to measure what my 1 acre yard's flora tells me about myself would be fruitless.
In any regard, the book is finely researched and not only are photographs shown of various gardens, but the actual plans in many cases are also rendered in order to help those who delve into such things. This paperback version's stock (a pulpy newsprint) is not the best and therefore many of the black and white details of the visuals were absorbed by it. Hopefully the final version will have a coated stock and color photos.
OK, so what was I really hoping for?
In today's gardening pantheon, every type of garden style is represented, from cottage-style flora explosions to formal, repressed squares. Therefore, every personality type is also represented by proxy. Something about our personalities explains why some choose a formal, restrictive gardening style and why some choose a much more loose method. But what? Can I truly use the above gilded list of personalities to help figure out these things? Graham presents a vast gardening history, yet cuts us off from gardening's present and gives us a limited pathway to discover and explain what these garden design traits actually tell us about ourselves. Can Edith Wharton's history of using an earlier style to suit her formal gardens at the Mount tell me why I choose a formal design for my back yard, but a looser style for my front yard? Doubtful. My one-story ranch is a far cry from her multi-room mansion and there's not much space for the Tulleries inside my privacy fence.
A better title would have been: "America's Eden: What famous landscape designs tell us about their original owners and designers".
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Site Engineering for Landscape Architects Review

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Site Engineering for Landscape Architects ReviewPuchased this text to help review for the LARE exam. The text has all of the necessary information but is not layed out well. Illustrations are not located on pages where they are referenced in the text making it so that you have to flip back and forth across several pages to understand the text in relation to the examples.
The larger problem with the book is that the answers to Exercises are not given. You will have no way to determine if you are completing the problems correctly or not. The only way to find out will be to have them reviewed by another Landscape Architect or Engineer.
The text functions well as a reference for Landscape Architects to review formulas or storm water calculation techniques but if you are trying to use it for developing skills or for exam preperation I would not recommend it.Site Engineering for Landscape Architects Overview

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This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone Review

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This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone ReviewI was drawn into this book right away, and could hardly put it down once I started reading. The story takes place in a time that seems at once very recent and very far away indeed. The author was born in the late 60's into a family committed to a life that most would consider intense deprivation, although many aspired to it--the life of the homesteader, who would be beholden to none but him/herself. Her parents had heard the siren song of Helen and Scott Nearing and joined them in Maine, purchasing a plot of land upon which they planned to raise their family by the work of their own hands.
And what a lot of work it was! I was a teenager when the Colemans were setting out to be organic farmers, and I read books by J. I. Rodale and the Nearings, fantasizing about the rural life. In my dreams it was so much more carefree! In fact, it was backbreaking and unceasing labor for the parents, and loneliness for the children, especially the eldest, Melissa, who longed for a friend. Soon enough, there was a baby sister to share the adventures of roaming about the farm in (literally) naked innocence, with the freedom to graze on the ripe fruits and explore the woods. Too much freedom, in fact, which eventually led to tragedy and heartbreak.
The family's story is interwoven with the events going on in the world outside, although for Papa, nothing much mattered on the radio broadcasts except the weather report, as he threw himself into making organic crops, enough to feed his family and grow the farm. Mama had to see to storing food for the long winter months while caring for first one and then two daughters, tending the goats and chickens, and helping with all the other farm chores. As it turned out, the "simple" life was not as simple as it seemed.
It's a heartbreaking and brave memoir. Melissa Coleman tells her story with sympathy for all involved, but doesn't shirk the hard details of just what "living the good life" cost her family.This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone Overview

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