Friday, March 3, 2017

Review: Garden Design by Alice Recknagel Ireys



This is not something I would normally have picked up as I do not intend to have detailed, manicured garden beds that would include something as high-fluting as a 'garden design' but I found this slim book for 50 cents at my local thrift store and you simply can't bet a price like that!

I enjoyed reading through this book and several of the garden designs caught my eye. For example, "A Garden of Annual Everlastings" offered some inspiration as far as seasonal cut flowers as well as dried flower for winter bouquets. I also enjoyed "A Salad Garden by the Kitchen Door" for its practical inspiration. Several of the solid-colour bed designs intrigued me as well.

Overall this book offered a very approachable viewpoint toward garden design. The information presented in the book is enough for a beginner gardener to make a passable attempt at any of the designs but I would do fair amount of additional research on each plant mentioned before I felt ready to actually put together one of the designs. I like the information presented for each design as a graphed layout is included as well as a chart showing details of the plants included. I think this book is best used by beginners by following a design accurately. There are several general design principles included in the book but they are not detailed enough to allow a beginner to deviate much from the proscribed plan.

Overall, I'm glad I took the risk and spent the 50 cents on this book!

No comments:

Post a Comment