TITLE: "The Glory of Gardens: 2,000 Years of Writings on Garden Design"
EDITOR: Scott J. Tilden
PUBLISHER/PRICE: Abrams, $50
Featuring original writings by more than 100 prominent gardening enthusiasts - spanning 2,000 years and myriad cultures - so that readers may literally "learn from the masters," this is one great coffee table book. It would make for a nice holiday gift, too.
Author's credentials: Tilden is the editor of several books on architecture, including "American Synagogues" and "Architecture for Art." For four years, he visited libraries at Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Yale and the New York Botanical Garden to research and compile the historic entries in this compendium.
Excerpt: "Advice to those about to build a water garden - DON'T. Not that the water garden is not a joy and a glory; but that it is cruelly hard to keep in order and control unless you are a master of millions and broad ample acres of pool and pond. Water, like fire, is a good servant, perhaps, but is painfully liable to develop into a master." - Reginald J. Farrar, "Don't Build a Water Garden" (1908)
If you're weary from the sight of rows of arborvitae, and bored from the mundane garden designs suggested by "experts" at garden superstores, why not heed the eloquent wisdom of garden ghosts gone by? Ancient designers, philosophers, scientists and poets coach you from the past with their musings - many translated from their native tongues - on their Western, Islamic, Japanese and Chinese gardens. Many of the writings have an intimate feel, as they were journal entries or letters to loved ones; others, written in essay form, are more formal, but nonetheless fascinating as cultural attitudes are evident throughout.
Brilliantly laced with color photographs, the personal accounts are categorized into chapters on principles, plan, structure, unity and variety, color, plant selection, hard surfaces and water. The reader will be drawn into the elegant style of the writers and the practical advice they offer. Applying the knowledge gleaned from these pages is sure to make one's home stand out.
