Country Garden

by John Brookes

A celebration of the country style -- from stately rolling acres to the smallest backyard plot, including all of the garden basics from choosing spring bulbs to harvesting autumn vegetables

How to plant flower, vegetable, and herb gardens

How to landscape with water, trees, grasses, and terraces

How to decorate with appropriate garden furniture

Fully illustrated with lush photographs, colorful charts, and instructive diagrams

Written by one of the world's most original and emulated garden designers

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published December 13, 1987

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

[Inder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is almost vintage now, but it is by far my favorite picture book of gardens ever published. John Brookes is an English landscape/garden designer, and every one of his books is gorgeous. But this is the one that best captures my romantic dream of a lovely garden fallen into disrepair and wildness. Every page conjures up "A Secret Garden," one of my favorite books as a child, and an enduring aesthetic of mine.

[Ruric Amhari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focus generally on larger country gardens - sections on gardens in the landscape, country styling. garden in winter, natural gardens, rugged garden, quarry garden, woodland garden, coloyur garden, gardens in spring, gravel garden, flower garden, cottage garden, enchanted garden, gardens in summer, water garden, shade garden, working garden, herb garden, garden in autumn and some garden case histories.

Sections on design and style practical and beautifully illustrated with plans, sketches and photos, as is the rest fo the book.

Some double page spreads show plants grouped under such titles as "stems in winter", "spring bulbs" etc.

Final section has a few plans and suggestions for planting in list form.

[Nershwin G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helped me with the concept of creating orderly backbones to a garden so that the wilds can really shine. Also, with the concept of framing views. Previously, I would only look at my house from the street in and was not considering as much how I could look out from the inside and frame/borrow the views of my neighbors' large oak and charming apple tree. The photographs of gardens are truly inspiring.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what my fantasies look like. Not a lot of "how to"--but a huge, gorgeous, photographic portfolio of styles and looks and ideas. I read it cover to cover, as Brookes muses on types of gardens and planting situations. It's a sourcebook of inspiration. Just lovely.