Shady Retreats: 20 Plans for Colorful, Private Spaces in Your Backyard

by Barbara W. Ellis

Most flowers and vegetables love the sun, but the gardeners who tend them crave the shade. A comfortable hammock strung between two trees. A set of Adirondack chairs arranged for conversation beneath a vine-covered arbor. A stone bench tucked into a quiet nook. These out-of-the-way outdoor retreats provide busy gardeners with cool relief from the hot sun, as well as precious hours of quiet, privacy, and peace. In SHADY RETREATS, lifelong gardener Barbara W. Ellis provides detailed plans for 20 gardens with shade as the theme. Each design includes easy-to-read blueprints and a glorious oil painting of what the garden will look like. Ellis also provides specific plant lists; suggestions on how to bring color into the shade; and practical advice on how to use shrubs, trees, vines, and man-made structures to create attractive, inviting, shady sanctuaries in any garden or yard. The garden design concepts are easy for even novices to grasp, and experienced gardeners will appreciate the unique inspirations and down-to-earth advice on how to adapt the concept of the shady retreat to fit their own garden's configuration. Complete with suggestions on how to use gazebos, containers, fountains, and other garden ornaments, plus an encyclopedia of approximately 100 shade-loving plants, Shady Retreats is an easy-to-use handbook that helps even beginning gardeners make the move out of the house and into a cool, inviting outdoor sanctuary.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

182 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Features recommendations of plants for specific situations.

I read the library copy, but worth buying.

[Ligaya · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book shows inspirational spaces, depicted by really lovely painted illustrations, and discusses the site planning and plants that could be used in such a space. Most of the 20 backyard designs failed to include vegetable garden beds, but concentrated almost entirely on sheltered, shady spaces. I think a single backyard space can include both, so I was disappointed. Also, many of the plants discussed are not represented by photographs at all!

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of this book won me over for being so appreciative of shade - you rarely find gardening books that tell you how to *create* shade and embrace it. The plans inside are rather outdated though and incorporate a gracious plenty of plants that are invasive in my book. Still, worth a read!

[False · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some very good ideas for creating outdoor living spaces. Not much in the "how to's" but more of the "Think about it."

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one has some lovely ideas. Inspirational.