As a professional garden designer and aspiring textile artist, I find this book inspiring in the extreme. The instructions are excellent, the garden design advice (intended for non-professionals) is surprisingly good. I appreciate the attention to real plants and environment, while also being loose with the representation (for instance, a brick wall is embroidered with the lower portion in darker, greener colors because there would be more moss at the bottom!).
I have poured over this book so much, I think I have it memorized. I've designed a dozen fantasy gardens for these techniques, which I am working on learning and hope to implement someday. The book keeps me excited to learn the techniques as I imagine my own garden designs in thread and yarn....and then I imagine them in art museums and as heirlooms....it is that inspiring!
Good photography, darling and detail-oriented gardens, and real plants inspiring it all.....leave it to the brits.
I would love to see more unconventional gardens done, too, but this book stuck to formal gardens, especially knot gardens (not surprisingly, given the title). This hardly matters, though, because it is clear that the creative needleworker will be able to adapt to any kind of garden desired.