Shortcuts to Great Gardens

This book is a great book for planning your landscape garden (even if it's already well established). We bought the hardback version when we lived in England, when it was first published.As a rule, the English prefer a garden that looks as though it has been there for years, and Nigel tells how to achieve that very quickly, giving it that established, comfortable, lush feel, as opposed to the stark bareness of most new landscape designs. But beyond just the first year or two, he tells how to plan succession plantings so your garden develops and matures through the years.The photos and drawings provide LOTS of inspiration, food for thought, concepts that you can 'steal' for your plot. They are classically English but adaptable almost anywhere. Most of them are designed for the average householder, not the grand formal gardens that require acres of land. If you can't visit England, photos are the next best thing. Maybe I'm predjudiced after living there, but the English do know how to garden, and this book shares a lot of their knowledge.

In this book, Mr. Colborn has certainly given me my money's worth. I am fond of the fact that he has backed up his text with beautifully done photos, and many of them too! It is wonderfully inspiring and I have taken some of his ideas and implemented them into my garden and they look great!