Garden Design Book

by John Brookes

A comprehensive guide to creating a stylish garden. Takes a look at how the garden has developed through the ages and the influence reflected by social and fashion changes. This book also looks at the principles of garden design including drawing plans, and understanding scale and proportion. Advice is provided on how to focus on the visual potential of plants, and how to approach the subject of planting with a designer's eye. John Brookes is the author of "The Garden Book", "The Indoor Garden Book", "The Country Garden" and "The New Small Garden".

Genres: Gardening

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

John Andrew Brookes MBE was a garden and landscape designer. He started designing gardens and landscapes in the late 1950s and designed thousands of gardens. He also taught and lectured about horticulture, landscape and interior design.

Beginning as a Modernist and working with Dame Sylvia Crowe, Brenda Colvin, Geoffrey Jellicoe and other notable architects and landscape architects, Brookes came of age in the dawn of garden and landscape design for the middle classes in Britain and in the heyday of 1960s London.

Brookes was influenced by painters such as Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholsen, and brought abstract and modernist principles to garden design.[2] He espoused the concept that a garden's design should be based first and foremost on the needs of its occupants, taking it out of the realm of the grand garden traditions which were labour-intensive, expensive, and high maintenance. He is the author of over two dozen books, including Room Outside and John Brookes, Master Class, that have been translated into several languages and has taught and lectured in venues around the globe, including Iran, Argentina, Japan, Russia, and the US.

In 2004 Brookes was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his for contributions to Garden Design and Services to Horticulture.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_...]

Reviews

[Ruric Amhari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and practical handbook for garden design. Split into 9 sections.

1. What is a garden? 2. Learning to design: principles, language, drawing skills, using a grid, design alternative. 3. Styling the garden: princples and different types of style. 4. Designing with plants: framework, specials, skeletons, decorative and infill. 5. Designing step by step: site assessment, developing design, planting plant, finished garden. 6. Design and styling solutions for different sites - 11 gardens. 7. Ingredients of a garden: hard landscaping, boudnaries, water, lighting etc. 8. Plant selection. 9. Further info.

[Lydia St Giles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my top three for gardening books. I this is the only book on design that you consult, it will see you through.
The weight and dimensions of this book are a reliable indication of its value to even an amateur gardener, offering so many ideas to apply to your own plot.
The book was published in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. You’ll see the Kew label again in the Top Ten.