Small Garden Designer's Handbook

Of all the lovely garden picture-books out there, few actually offer applicable advice (unless you own a country-house estate!). A Small Garden Designer's Handbook is not only chock-full of gorgeous photography, it actually shows you how you can turn the smallest plot of earth into a personalized piece of Eden. With chapters on ground planning, enclosures, plants, and focal points, you'll see the options are abundant even if your acreage is not. There is an insightful emphasis on the "architecture" of the garden: using it to support plants, or using plants AS architecture-- helping to make the garden an extension of the home, not just a separate entity. With attention paid to details like paths and paving, entrances and eye-catchers, as well as ornaments and containers, you needn't worry if your thumb is not the greenest around. From the inside flap: There are many elements - apart from the plants themselves - that make a garden different and special. All too often they are seen as playing a secondary role, but in fact they dictate the flavor of the whole garden. Used wrongly, they can destroy its harmony; used with skill, they can pull disparate features together and can give structure at a stroke; used with bravura, they can lift the mundane into something spectacular.