Beyond The Lawn: Unique Outdoor Spaces For Modern Living

by Keith Davitt

"Grass is pass¬," says veteran landscape designer Keith Davitt. He goes beyond the traditional lawn in this book, now in paperback, in which he offers a number of fresh, new ideas for transforming front and backyards into sanctuaries that pack plenty of curb appeal and offer a hideaway for you and your family and friends.This refreshing book offers myriad ideas for nontraditional outdoor spaces that are as beautiful as they are low maintenance. YouÆll discover how to banish cutting, watering, and weed worries forever by creating lovely outdoor spaces that replace the traditional grass lawn with rock walls, sculptures, native grasses, mosses, wildflowers, and more.

Davitt guides you through making design choices that suit your unique needs, such as determining which plants thrive in particular climates and soil conditions. He shows how to beautify your landscape with numerous materials and techniques, ultimately proving that it is possible to create a truly stunning garden without grass.

Genres: Gardening

136 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

Reviews

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

More than a book about limiting your lawn as the book title suggests, this is a book about tiny urban gardens. While that is not my circumstance, I was looking forward to design suggestions for garden rooms and patio areas. I loved how this book was chock full of gardens with their before and after photos. But upon closer reading I was disappointed for several reasons. First of all, the text accompanying the gardens is repetitious and shallow with little insight given on challenges faced, design criteria, plants selected, and how the garden might mature. Secondly, the book actually made me better appreciate grass and how its simple uniform texture, bright green color, living nature unifies a diversity of garden plants and it's hardscape, and creates a comfortable environment. Much of the hardscape shown in this book is overly complicated with a myriad of materials and colors that to my taste clash and overwhelm the garden plants. I also couldn't help but think of the heat that those materials must radiate much of the year. Despite not being to my taste, the illustrations were fun to look at.

[Kathee]

The title does the book a disservice. I thought this book would be about (non-lawn) garden spaces. It is instead about patios and walkways and pacers and pebbled surfaces. Many are very cute. Just not what I was looking for.

[Barbara]

Great ideas for various hardscape options instead of lawn. Expecting the snow here to disappear within the next month and then the garden re-design will begin.

[Kriste · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good ideas but I found the text boring, so I mostly just skimmed it.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful ideas for replacing grass but limited in scale.