A woven willow fence encircles olive trees and lavender bushes
A good suggestion for a rainy afternoon is to try reading The Garden Source: Inspirational Design Ideas for Gardens and Landscapes (Rizzoli), a mesmerizing book, originally published in England, written by renowned garden photographer Andrea Jones with a forward by the well-known landscape architect James van Sweden. The tome offers myriad solutions to every gardener’s dilemmas while a vast selection of photographs illustrates the possibilities. Choices are clearly described, plant materials are identified, and the senses are stirred.
Inside, Jones takes readers around the world, from Rio de Janeiro and Japan to Sonoma and East Hampton, showing the best of the best examples in a demonstration of her great advice: Visit gardens to get ideas. She utilizes a trained eye to select images of fine gardens that address design questions, such as privacy, screening, proportion, and surprise.
With images from the storied tulip beds at Keukenhof, the elaborate Château & Jardins de Villendry, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and back home to our own Madoo Conservancy, she opens our eyes to fascinating resolutions. Masses of stepping stones, varieties of plants, clipped yews and hornbeam hedges, mowed lawns, and wildflowers illustrate the problems many gardeners face. Learn from England’s Hidcote Manor or a Moorish sultan’s garden; compare and contrast tubs, troughs, ceramic planters, and varieties of trees; glance through a helpful index referencing plants; or rush to visit gardens suggested by the author. This book will send every aspirational Capability Brown out to his or her backyard for another look.
The plethora of choices will drive you mad since many are adaptable to our Hamptons environment. The sheer volume of suggestions are dizzying, stirring your creative juices. Have you ever considered a red wall, a fence of woven willow, shimmering lights under an acrylic wall, a checkered path of stone and grass, a terraced wall garden, or a maze? I pored over this book for hours, underlining, highlighting, and letting my mind wander, imagining ideas for my Southampton garden. If you’re considering so much as an arbor, a fence, or a border, look no farther. The Garden Source: Inspirational Design Ideas for Gardens and Landscapes is available at bookstores throughout the Hamptons
