Gardening With Shape, Line, and Texture: A Plant Design Sourcebook

by Linden Hawthorne

Gardening with Shape, Line and Texture bridges the gap between garden design books and plant reference encyclopedias. Leading landscaper Linden Hawthorne looks at plants from a designer's perspective (where color is often a secondary consideration) and emphasizes the important roles of plant shape.

Part One reviews fine art principles and shows how they can be successfully applied to plant compositions by grouping plants into three ground to knee, knee to navel, and navel to crown. She identifies different plant shapes—buns, mounds, tiers, fountains, uprights—and shows how the use of them contributes to the success of the finished design. Part Two is a plant sourcebook with plants listed alphabetically within their key plant shape categories.

This innovative plant reference delivers plant information in a form that neatly dovetails with the garden design process and will inspire gardeners to look beyond color and begin to appreciate the whole plant.

Genres: Gardening, Horticulture, Nonfiction

280 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2009

Reviews

[Iowa City Public Library]

It’s that time of year. The sun is (mostly) shining and things are turning green. Time to think about your garden that has been buried under all that snow since December. And, no better place to get inspired about all the things you want to to do in your garden this year than at the Library. I pulled a couple of books off the NEW book shelf on the second floor this week to start my thinking process. One is Gardening with Shape, Line and Texture: a plant design sourcebook by Linden Hawthorne (do you suppose her parents were gardeners?). The book is full of beautiful pictures (most of them taken in Britain where the author is from) and the chapters have self explanatory titles: Painting with Plants, Horizontals and Tiers, Verticals and Diagonals, Arcs and Fountains, Clumps and Mounds, Clouds and Transparents. Designing and Planting Small Gardens by Peter McHoy focuses on smaller spaces with many examples of styles, over 700 photographs and features on patios, ponds, rock gardens, roof terraces and containers. There are excellent step by step pages – like the cook books that show pictures along the way, not just of the finished projects. My focus is perennials and flowers, but there are books for all types of gardeners at the Library. --Susan

From ICPL Staff Picks Blog

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I owe Linden Hawthorne an apology as I have been negative about gardening books written by English authors for the North American audience. This book for more advanced gardeners is a gem! While there are many book that address the use of texture in the garden, this book primarily deals with shape and structure. She has provided the necessary growing conditions and zone information to make this book of value to gardeners outside England. If you are trying to take your perennial garden to the next level this is the book for you. Plants are arranged by their structural presence in the garden for example, horizontals, verticals, arcs, clumps, clouds... I personally need more clouds and transparents in my garden!

[Onceinabluemoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection of perennials.