Review by Booklist Review
Landscape design books abound, yet few tackle the subject as practically or proficiently as Hayward's. Beginning with a simple and obvious premise, that your house is the center from which your garden design should flow, Hayward breaks a property into its separate landscaping areas--entrance, side yards\b and back yards, specialty areas such as courtyards, and outbuildings--to effectively illustrate how the whole really can be the sum of its parts. He addresses the aesthetic as well as the utilitarian aspects of garden design with a detailed approach that is both inspirational and sensible. A design consultant for residential gardens from Boston to Hawaii, Hayward recalls the challenges he and his clients encountered and how they were overcome. Paying particular attention to such ubiquitous, unsightly elements as ill-placed power meters and cooling units, Hayward teaches home owners how to conceal such undesirable elements and reveal a property's true beauty. --Carol Haggas Copyright 2003 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A gifted teacher, Haywood (Stone in the Garden) begins with a deceptively simple idea: "Your house is the center of your garden." His exploration of what that means both as "an aesthetic notion" and a "practical tool" gives the reader a solid foundation in home garden design. In six chapters devoted to the main locations for the garden-front, side, back (including patios and terraces), ells or courtyards, between buildings and around outbuildings-readers learn how to create inviting outdoor spaces, solve common problems and establish a unifying flow. Hayward's examples from his work as a prominent garden designer illuminate principles that home gardeners can apply to their own circumstances. He prescriptively presents welcome solutions to eyesores such as "power lines and meter boxes, propane tanks, satellite dishes, mounded leach fields" and more. While the book includes many helpful planting suggestions and plant lists (as well as 200 helpful photos and drawings), this is not a what-to-plant-where guide. Hayward's approach is fundamentally architectural, and he warns not to "expect all the answers to rely solely on plants." For Hayward, a garden is "made up of paths and sitting areas among trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals in pots, furniture, and garden ornaments." Numerous detailed watercolors and color photographs show the interplay of plants with structural elements such as paths, steps, arbors, fences and stone walls. The reader who follows Hayward's advice to "bring your creative mind to our images" will be rewarded with "no end of springboards for your own garden designs." (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Many landscape design authors discuss ways to integrate a garden with the house and other existing property features. Hayward (Stone in the Garden), however, goes beyond general principles like color and size, structuring this book around the concept that "your house is the center of your garden [not just as an] aesthetic notion but [as] a practical tool." Chapters focus on the various zones around a house: the front garden (there is advice on how to design a welcoming sense of "entrance" to the home through hardscape and plantings that reflect the style and materials of the house itself); side yards, back gardens, and terraces; gardens in an ell or courtyard; and areas between buildings and around outbuildings. Each includes sidebars and short articles on solving practical problems, such as concealing meter boxes, designing foundation plantings to survive snowfall off the roof, beautifying the space beneath a raised deck, and hiding a mounded leachfield. This combination of design principles and practical solutions to problems faced by all homeowners-not just avid gardeners-makes this a uniquely useful addition to all collections on gardening and landscape design, especially in public libraries.-Beth Clewis Crim, Prince William P.L., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
