Review by Booklist Review
Potter, an English novelist and garden writer, defines secret gardens as those that have the qualities of concealment (which usually means an enclosure), privacy, and mystery. Potter offers designs that feature brick archways, sunken gardens, a hidden lily pond, summer houses, arbors, a cast-iron bridge, a thatched teahouse, pavilions, huts, gazebos, bowers, and pergolas, and tunnels of camellias, dogwood, and rhododendron. She presents five case studies of real secret gardens, including a California garden on the Pacific Coast and one in the center of Paris. These intriguing retreats--woodland hideaways, caves and grottoes, Mediterranean and Japanese courtyards, elaborate tree houses, a private hillside, and a showy New York City rooftop--would require lots of space and money to create and maintain. But with its 135 lavish color photographs, this is an excellent book for browsing. --George Cohen
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
