35 Garden Blueprints: Beautiful Possibilities for Designing Your Garden

by Maggie Oster, Grace Tvaryanas, Anne Meskey (Illustrator)

Provides garden designs by plant types and themes, including formal and informal, English, French, Japanese, herb, and climbing gardens

Genres: Gardening

96 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1989

Reviews

[Jonathan Butcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presents a variety of 35 different garden designs of diverse style which should appeal to every taste. What I really like is that each design has a whimsical artist rendition which, along with being one representation of what the garden could be, also inspires the imagination to dream of what your version could look like

[Linda (NOT RECEIVING NOTIFICATIONS) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like so many other gardening books this one is geared toward the north and middle area of the United States. The pictures of each 'garden' are a colored drawing. They give the reader an idea of what to plant where. She gives you the common name of each plant, the Latin name and a cultivar which is a plus.

The only problem for those of us that live in the lower south is she mixes plants in a way that won't survive are hot and humid summers. Yes, there are some that can make it through this trying time but unless you are an experienced gardener you wouldn't know it. It is like when I visit the nursery department at Lowes or Home Depot and they have petunia and pansies along with impatiens and coleus. If you live in the lower south you know that the first two should be planted in the fall and the second two are made for spring planting. Impatiens and coleus can't handle light frosts but the others can survive. When possible I try to pull the customer aside and let them know this.

This same concept needs to applied to her vegetable, herb and ornamental garden designs, too. If you are aware of this you could substitute plants in her drawings but then what is the purpose of this book? All in all, she gives you nice ideas if you live anywhere but the south. Just be aware that you may have to substitute plants for your area.

[Linda (NOT RECEIVING NOTIFICATIONS) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like so many other gardening books this one is geared toward the north and middle area of the United States. The pictures of each 'garden' are a colored drawing. They give the reader an idea of what to plant where. She gives you the common name of each plant, the Latin name and a cultivar which is a plus.

The only problem for those of us that live in the lower south is she mixes plants in a way that won't survive are hot and humid summers. Yes, there are some that can make it through this trying time but unless you are an experienced gardener you wouldn't know it. It is like when I visit the nursery department at Lowes or Home Depot and they have petunia and pansies along with impatiens and coleus. If you live in the lower south you know that the first two should be planted in the fall and the second two are made for spring planting. Impatiens and coleus can't handle light frosts but the others can survive. When possible I try to pull the customer aside and let them know this.

This same concept needs to applied to her vegetable, herb and ornamental garden designs, too. If you are aware of this you could substitute plants in her drawings but then what is the purpose of this book? All in all, she gives you nice ideas if you live anywhere but the south. Just be aware that you may have to substitute plants for your area.

[Martha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the illustrations, with what to plant where. I haven't tried to look for any of the plants yet, to see if they are readily available here. I like that most are tolerant of cold winters.