Designing and Renovating Larger Gardens by Douglas Coltart

Designing and Renovating Larger Gardens by Douglas Coltart lands on the shelves of my shop.

Portland: Timber Press, Inc., 2007, Hardback in dust wrapper.

Illustrated by way of: Colour Photographs; Diagrams; Tables; Plans;

From the cover: Designing a large garden may seem overwhelming at first, but with careful planning and a dash of creativity any gardener can achieve a beautiful and highly manageable space. Whether you are designing your own garden or working with a landscape designer, success lies in addressing the unique but wholly surmountable challenges that affect larger gardens.

In this unprecedented guide to designing and renovating gardens of one third of an acre or more, Douglas Coltart begins by recommending a careful review of the property to identify its unique qualities. Drawing upon his professional experience as an award-winning landscape designer, he goes on to describe fundamental ground rules for larger gardens, such as anchoring the garden into the surrounding landscape, making the most of arrival space, creating focal points, scaling up, and linking individual elements to form a unified whole. Maintenance is a key issue in larger gardens so techniques for minimizing the weekly workload are particularly valuable. Using diagrams, illustrations and case studies, the author recounts triumphs (and tribulations) from his personal projects and supplements the advice with photographs of large gardens from all over the world. The final section suggests appropriate plants for specific sites and purposes including groundcovers for sloping banks, plants for woodlands and shelterbelts, and trees for use in framing views or as focal points.

With its clear identification of the key issues affecting larger gardens, this innovative design manual provides inspiration and practical guidance for anyone seeking to design, renovate or manage more expansive properties.

Very Good in Very Good Dust Wrapper. Dust wrapper very slightly rubbed at the edges otherwise a very well presented copy.

Black boards with Silver titling to the Spine. 160 pages. Index. 10¾” x 7¾”.

Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!

The First Time Garden by Geoff Hamilton

The First Time Garden by Geoff Hamilton lands on the shelves of my shop.

BBC Books, 1988, Hardback in dust wrapper.

Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Colour Photographs; Black & White Plates; Colour Drawings; Diagrams;

From the cover: Geoff Hamilton, BBC televisions popular gardening expert, provides a basic guide to designing and making a small garden from scratch which is essential reading for all first-time gardeners, or for the owners of a first-time garden plot.

If the patch outside your window is a heap of builders rubble or an overgrown jungle of weeds, then Geoff Hamiltons straightforward, easy to follow advice will tell you how to set about turning it into an attractive, flourishing and purpose-built garden, complete with patio and pool, paths, hedges and rock garden and of course a perfect lawn, as well as planting it with trees, shrubs, climbers and flowering plants to suit every soil and condition.

Very Good in Very Good Dust Wrapper.

Green boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. 192 pages. Index. 9¼” x 6¼”.

Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!