Product Description

With projects suited to both small and large spaces, the Garden Design series is more than a new collect ion of lovely picture books - it is a valuable tool that ena bles readers to actually create their own outdoor havens. '

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1207981 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 120 pages

From Amazon.com
In this charming, beautifully photographed book, Hazel White has put together a breathtaking group of recipes for decorative paths and walkways. Each plan is explained first in terms of the image, fantasy, and feel that's being created, and is then followed by a list of "ingredients"--the plants, tools, materials list, and step-by-step instructions. Paths and Walkways is suitable for beginners, but is sure to provide ideas for experienced garden planners as well. Each project can be adapted for very large or small areas, and has information on maintenance of the materials and care of the plants. The different paths and walkways are rated individually by expense, difficulty of implementation, and the type of location required in relation to sun and shade. Even if you can't find exactly the garden passage you're looking for, the elements outlined in Paths and Walkways will allow you to improvise a plan of your own.

From Publishers Weekly
In this launch of Chronicle's Garden Design series, horticulture writer White suggests that paths give a garden structure, much as a skeleton shapes a body. She notes that paths, by facilitating movement from place to another, have a narrative quiality. Such concepts as scale, symmetry (or asymmetry), curving and/or straight lines, materials (dirt, wood, stone, brick, etc.) and edging also contribute to a path's ultimate effect. These concepts and those specifically concerned with building different kinds of paths are lucidly and briefly addressed in the first two chapters. The rest of the book is devoted to detailed "recipes" for constructing 24 specific paths. Photographs of each path are accompanied by a list of the equipment and supplies (including plantings) required to build it and to satisfy its maintenance needs. Grouped according to material (e.g., Brick; Grass and Wood), the projects are also classified according to ease or difficulty and relative expense. Such elements as grade and climate are left to the reader to consider, as are the many variations that will certainly be required of any given project by specific sites. The projects, such as Fieldstones and Irises, embellished with boulders, marguerites, euphorbias and lamb's ears, or Herb Parterre, using gravel, crushed rock, metal edging and dwarf myrtles, will surely spark further ideas in the interested gardener, while White's matter-of-fact approach to their construction will help reluctant or intimidated gardeners get started along paths of their own. (Mar.) FYI: White's Water Gardens, another title in the series, is also being published in March.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Horticulture
"Although not specifically geared to small gardens, Water Gardens and Paths and Walkways, by Hazel White, with photography by Matthew Plut, will be a great help to anyone who is dealing with these elements in garden design, small plot or large...

What raises these books above many other volumes in the how-to category, however, is White's voice. These books are worth reading even if you never intend to buy the level you would need to build a path, or the pond liner for that bit of reflecting pool.

Customer Reviews

Heavy on text
I was curious about what kind of garden publications Chronicle Books would be putting out so I bought three in the series; Water Gardens, Paths and Walkways, and Small Patios.

I think if I had seen these in the bookstore I would've probably put them back. I was expecting something a little heavier on the visuals from Chronicle Books.

But the examples are interesting. Nice range of elements, and tending to favor the quirky in design. The author describes the garden element in question (depends on which book you have) and uses one overall photograph and two detail shots. The detail shots seem there mostly for atmosphere and to break up the page. She also includes a one-page, how-to discussion, and a list of tools and materials.

I'm not looking forward to all the reading.