- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Workman Publishing (21 Sep 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0761114068
- ISBN-13: 978-0761114062
- Product Dimensions: 26.3 x 26.2 x 2.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,265,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||
|
Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
And what variety: gates; fences; walls; edgings; trellises; arbors, pergolas, and arches; paths; hedges and espalier; potting sheds and greenhouses. Within each section, many examples are given along with (very) occasional drawings of a project. Some unfootnoted history and observations are included, as well. So the book offers extremely broad scope -- one might even call it "encyclopaedic". But be warned that you may not, for the most part, be able to divine (based on content) whether a structure will work for your garden.
The book catalogs topics pretty well; the photos assure this. But to be truly encyclopaedic, the book needs a much more comprehensive table of contents, especially because there is no index. And I would like to have seen footnoting (or at least a list of sources) for the bits of historical information included. Ultimately, though, the reason the book drives me nuts is that it is very hard to find my way back to ideas or photos that interest me.
That said, you will almost certainly see something new to you. And once you see something of interest, you'd better mark it well because the book will give you absolutely no help in finding it again.
Smith's book appears to be a photo collection of garden elements from all over the country and the result is a hotch-potch of structures reflecting a wide array of styles, periods, and eras. She has mixed Adams, Hepplewhite, Dutch colonial, Zen, 50's Moderne, and Art Deco, Italian, and plantation-style in categories by type of structure.
GARDEN STRUCTURES contains categories covering fences, gates, trellises, arbors, edgings and other "bones" of the garden. The section on gates shows a wide assortment of every kind of gate--wrought iron, post, picket, etc. The section on fences shows stockades, picket, wattle, split rail, etc. The section on paths shows pebbles, stones, bricks, bricks and cement, terracotta, grass, etc. (Paths probably are the least problematic, but one wonders how well colonial-style Italian stringcourse would look on a Zen garden path.)
If you're building a REALLY eclectic garden this detailed inventory might prove useful. Or, if you know how to integrate the various items from the various sections because you recognize their age/period/style it will work. You may want to find another book that shows entact gardens--plants, fences, gates, trellises, arbors, and other elements together. From the 'whole-some' examples you can derive a notion of what constitutes an integrated picture.
GARDEN STRUCTURES provides the reader with hundreds of piece-parts but does not shed much light on how to put it them together. Still, the experienced gardener may find some provocative ideas here.