Coffee Table Book of: Gardens (Hardcover)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Gardens is a large format book of gardens from many lands, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: formal parterres and clipped topiary, cottage borders and walled kitchen gardens, desert gardens of cactus and agave, water gardens of pools, rills and fountains, and stroll gardens round still ponds, at many hours and in every season.

The formal gardens are laid out in scrolls of low boxwood and pale gravel, guarded by clipped yew cones and spirals, crossed by walks of pleached lindens and avenues of beech in autumn gold, and stepped down hillsides in stone terraces lined with cypresses and lemon trees.

Cottage borders spill delphiniums, foxgloves and catmint over old brick paths, hollyhocks and lupins crowd the way to a cottage door, a laburnum arch hangs its yellow chains over purple alliums, and deep double borders run between dark yew hedges.

Desert gardens set barrel cacti, agaves and yuccas among pale boulders and gravel. An ocotillo flowers red at sunrise, an agave sends up its single tall flower stalk, a dry streambed of cobbles winds through silver shrubs, feather grasses glow in low autumn sun, an old olive stands alone on a dry terrace, a branching cactus stands under the stars, a storm breaks over wet gravel and a walled courtyard keeps a small fountain cool at noon.

Water runs through them all: a walled garden in four quarters divided by narrow channels, a rill stepping down a lawn, a sheet of water over a stone lip, a bog garden of giant rhubarb and primulas, an obelisk on an island and a domed temple above a misty lake.

Short notes run through the book, on how gardens are laid out, planted and clipped, the water, stone and glass that shape them, and the plants that thrive in sun, shade, wet ground and drought: yew grows slowly and takes close clipping well, so it keeps a crisp shape for many years, many old garden fountains ran on gravity alone, fed by pipes from a pond or tank set higher up, ocotillo stands bare and spiny most of the year and puts out leaves within days of rain, and many agaves flower only once, after many years, sending up one tall stalk before the plant dies.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.