Gardening > Gardens/Garden Design

A lavishly illustrated and deeply personal story of the creation of an idiosyncratic Australian country garden, Velvet Pears is an inspirational book that is also full of practical ideas. Author Susan Southam created the amazing garden at Foxglove Spires on the land of an old dairy paddock. Velvet Pears captures the essence of living simply and with the seasons, within a local community, with a sustainable lifestyle.

Woodend was less than an hour from my Melbourne office, and the size of the school land was manageable. That was as far as my rational response to St Ambrose went - for I'd fallen in love with the schoolhouse. It had been tucked away for so long behind its walls of blackberries, like some sleeping beauty, that I wanted to wake it up, bring it to life.' The Enchanted Garden is the story of how renowned landscape designer Paul Bangay came to build the garden of St Ambrose Farm, against the blue background of Mount Macedon. The breath... read more

In the final years of the nineteenth century the crumbling villas abandoned on the hills above Florence proved irresistible to an eccentric colony of English and American expatriates. After a brilliant introduction this entertaining book features some twenty of these characters, among them Bernard Berenson at I Tatti; the 'cad' Sir Arthur Acton and his fabulously wealthy wife at La Pietra; the bereaved philosopher Charles Strong whose Rockefeller in-laws financed his villa retreat; the cross-dressing English essayist Violet Paget -... read more

Our gardens are a microcosm of nature; the ecological processes that go on in a garden mirror those operating on a global scale. The better we understand and quantify these cycles and processes, as they operate on both large and small scales, the more effective our management strategies will be."Sustainable Gardens" introduces the reader to the historical context of the global, national and local environmental issues that confront us and examines the idea of sustainable living as a means of addressing these issues. It draws attenti... read more

Ardent lovers of landscape scenery will delight in this lavishly illustrated book which showcases 25 of Australia's most elegant and exquisite historic gardens. Australia's leading garden design photographer and writer Trisha Dixon brings to life the beauty of gardens such as those of Brindabella Station, Elsey Station, Wallcliffe House, Heide and The Cedars, locating them in time and place as she draws on the work of writers such as Banjo Paterson, Patrick White, Miles Franklin, Mary Gilmore and Louisa Meredith, as well as on a wi... read more

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Small gardens demand careful planning to use space efficiently and maximise the perception of space. This is essential in any small space, whether it is a garden or a room inside the house. Using the best design principles to manipulate space, are the tricks of this trade. Used well, they are the difference between ordinary and grand.

With clearly set out and easy-to-follow weekly and monthly tips, useful gardening information and planting guides for each major Australasian climatic zone, Yates Garden Planner will see you safely through the gardening year.

Helen Attlee and her photographer husband Alex Ramsay have been visiting Italian gardens, photographing them and writing about them, for two decades. In recent years Helena has been leading garden tours to Italy, arranging for clients to enjoy lunch with garden owners, chat with gardeners and discuss designs with landscape architects. These behind-the-scenes glimpses are the inspiration for Italy's Private Gardens, a book built around conversations with people intimately associated with some of Italy's most intriguing private garde... read more

Francis' account of his ownership of Cloudehill provides extraordinary details of the more technical aspects of the iconic garden, including plantings, structural design, experiments and failures, the triumphs and disappointments associated with gardening

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A garden is a little piece of nature transformed by humans and integrated into their environment for their enjoyment. Gardens are also an outward extension of the home - an extra living space for leisure and recreation. These concepts are the basis for the large variety of designs and tips for outdoor spaces presented in this magnificent book. It is a visual guide filled with original ideas and tricks which enable you to let your imagination run free to create a natural space in your home. The examples described and illustrated can... read more

A sumptuously colourful garden has the extraordinary power to lift the spirits no matter the time of year. Yet many people struggle to create their own colour combinations that are suitable to site and soil, and which take their gardens through the seasons. This new book provides inspiration and practical advice for gardeners wishing to improve their plantings, both in appearance and in use. Val Bourne shows how varied and vibrant plantings can enhance the look of beds and borders, and how - with a little planning - they can be... read more

Ravishingly photographed, romantic beyond reason, this book devoted to the most celebrated gardens of southern Italy captures the inexhaustible lure of one of the most beautiful places on earth: Campania, the sun-kissed region that is home to Naples, Capri and the Amalfi Coast. Erstwhile pleasure dome to the Roman emperors, and still Italy's most glamorous seaside getaway, this province has been a top destination for garden appassionati for decades. Bewitched by the natural splendours of the region, author and photographer Robert I... read more

Acclaimed writer/photgrapher team Anneli Bojstad and Eduardo Mencos look at 40 of Spain's most beautiful gardens. Large and small, historical and contemporary, classical and modern, the gardens are all very different, reflecting the diversity of Spain's climate and landscape, from the moist, green north to the dry, hot Mediterranean south. All are among the most beautiful gardens to be found in Spain today, as over 200 stunning colour photographs reveal. And all are open to the public.

From the luxurious to the accessible, the sustainable and the edible, Jamie Durie's innovative garden designs have changed the way we look at gardens. A pioneer of the Outdoor Room concept, Durie's designs are as much about the humans who live in them as they are about the concepts. This philosophy - communicated through his award-winning designs, television shows, books, magazine and endless editorials across the globe - has inspired a whole new generation to create a more meaningful connection to their outdoor spaces. Jamie Durie... read more

The idea of vertical gardening has been completely transformed in recent years through the concept of the Green Wall. Since then, many new developments have appeared. Noemie Vialard presents these techniques, paying particular attention to her friend Patrick Blanc's concept of the mur vegetal and the wall of aromatic plants he designed especially for her, with step-by-step photographs to guide gardeners through construction, planting and irrigation. Vialard goes on to offer two-dozen different ideas for vertical garden compositions... read more

Beth Chatto has been among the most influential British gardeners of the second half of the twentieth century. When she started to make her garden on an overgrown area of wasteland in Essex in 1960 she was faced with a range of widely differing conditions, from drought-stricken gravel through woodland to dense, silty bog. Applying the principles of ecological gardening, she set about finding plants that would suit these very different, awkward situations. The gardens she made - the Mediterranean garden on the sunny slopes, the shad... read more

"On the High Line" is the first illustrated guide to the elevated park that has transformed an entire neighbourhood of New York City. Illustrated with some 400 colour photos, including the work of notable photographer and horticulturist Rick Darke, and featuring a gatefold map, it is an engaging, friend-at-your-side guide to everything that a visitor sees when strolling through the park: the innovative gardens and their thousands of plants from around the world; the art, architecture and landscape design by highly recognizable name... read more