American Home Landscapes: A Design Guide to Creating Period Garden Styles

by Denise W. Adams, Laura L.S. Burchfield

While there’s no shortage of information on restoring and maintaining the historical integrity of period homes, until now there has been no authoritative reference that provides comparable information for landscapes. American Home Landscapes is a comprehensive, fully illustrated guide to recreating nearly 400 years of historical landscape design and adapting them to modern needs.

You will first learn how to research design elements for a particular property. Each of the following chapters focuses on the design characteristics of six well-defined historical periods, beginning with the Colonial period and ending with the last decades of the twentieth century. Each section features the most prominent landscape features of each era, such as paths, driveways, fences, hedges, seating, and accessories. Extensive bibliographic resources and historically accurate plant lists round out the text.

Whether the goal is to create a meticulously accurate period landscape or simply to evoke the look of a bygone era, you’ll find the tools you need in American Home Landscapes .

Genres: Gardening

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2013

Reviews

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely every gardener, who lives in a period home, needs to read this book! What a gem! Denise Wiles Adams and Laura L. S. Burchfield have created a much needed masterpiece full of wonderful photographs that will attract gardeners, home decorators, and historians alike. In six chapters, they cover the time periods from 1620 to 2000 including a basic overview of architecture styles, history of landscape design at the time, and popular landscape features, plants and accessories in use at the time. Each chapter includes a few case studies of houses needing landscaping updates with before and after details. Each time period also includes a recommended plant list providing specific cultivars to investigate. The book ends with an extensive bibliography, which will help readers interested in more details about specific architecture styles. Great book!

[Bekka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley.com and Timber Press for allowing me early access to this title.

This is an amazingly comprehensive book covering American landscaping from the early 1600 to the present day. Adams and Burchfield include a large number of photos, blueprint plans and historic illustrations to show the reader what each era's landscaping preferences were. This is a fascinating and detailed book that would be great reading for anyone interested in gardening or history.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great resource for gardeners interested in historical accuracy when designing gardens for their homes, but also just an interesting history of the American garden, both formal and vernacular. Heavily illustrated with artwork and photos depicting specific homes as well as general principles of each stylistic era, and with lists of plants commonly used in each time period. Pleasant and informative.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned that it was very common for Arts and Crafts homes of the 1900s to have front-yard vegetable gardens. Which made me very happy as it's something we've been talking about doing. I wish the writers of this book would write a whole book on each era they covered, but it was fun to flip through and see highlights.