Coffee Table Book of: Underwater Gardens (Paperback)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Underwater Gardens is a large format book of underwater gardens, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: stone layouts, terraced plant gardens, driftwood jungles, biotopes of wild waters and paludariums of land and water, with the rivers, forests and mountains these small worlds are modelled on.

The stone layouts are spare and calm: a tall veined grey stone in a lawn of bright green hairgrass, low stones ringed by carpets of tiny round leaves, upright slabs of dark slate, jagged black lava rock, a stone cushioned in bright green liverwort and open pale sand left bare for the eye, beside a lone rock in a misty mountain meadow.

Plant gardens rise in neat terraces of red, gold, lilac and green stems, among swaying ribbon leaves, a spotted red tiger lotus, a broad sword plant, wavy bronze crypts and an anubias in flower. In the driftwood scapes, gnarled roots and twisted branches carry ferns and weeping moss, a small tree of pale wood wears a crown of moss, and a dark cave shelters tiny silver fish.

The biotopes copy wild waters: tea brown streams of fallen leaves and roots with schools of cardinal tetras, flat loaches clinging to stones in a cool hill stream, bright cichlids among rocky caves, angelfish between upright reeds and a flooded forest at dawn. Paludariums join mossy banks of ferns to clear pools, with roots reaching down into the water.

Finished tanks stand in bare rooms at dawn, at noon and on snowy nights, moss balls rest in a round glass bowl, and the care behind them is shown piece by piece: curved scissors and long tweezers, cuttings in a jar, young plants in cups of jelly, moss tied to stone, driftwood soaking, and stone and wood laid out before the water goes in.

Short notes run through the book, on how stone, wood and plants are chosen and arranged, the wild waters and fish that biotopes copy, and the care that keeps a planted tank clear and growing: long curved scissors reach deep into a tank to trim stems without disturbing the plants around them, anubias grows slowly on stone and wood, and can even flower under water, moss balls are a green alga, rolled into velvety spheres by gentle waves on lake floors, and driftwood is soaked before use so that it sinks, and so less brown tannin runs into the tank.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a paperback.