In What Gardens Mean, Stephanie Ross draws on philosophy as well as the histories of art, gardens, culture, and ideas to explore the magical lure of gardens. Paying special attention to the amazing landscape gardens of eighteenth-century England, she situates gardening among the other fine arts, documenting the complex messages gardens can convey and tracing various connections between gardens and the art of painting. What Gardens Mean offers a distinctive blend of historical and contemporary material, ranging from extensive accounts of famous eighteenth-century gardens to incisive connections with present-day philosophical debates. And while Ross examines aesthetic writings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including Joseph Addison’s Spectator essays on the pleasures of imagination, the book’s opening chapter surveys more recent theories about the nature and boundaries of art. She also considers gardens on their own terms, following changes in garden style, analyzing the phenomenal experience of viewing or strolling through a garden, and challenging the claim that the art of gardening is now a dead one. (ed.)

This book offers the professional a rich source of ideas about the designed landscape, what these mean to us and how they acquired that significance. Key essays from landscape architects are presented with the authors’ current reflections.

Why do gardens matter so much and mean so much to people? That is the intriguing question to which David Cooper seeks an answer in this book. Given the enthusiasm for gardens in human civilization ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, it is surprising that the question has been so long neglected by modern philosophy. Now at last there is a philosophy of gardens. David Cooper identifies garden appreciation as a special human phenomenon distinct from both from the appreciation ofart and the appreciation of nature. He discusses the contribution of gardening and other garden-related pursuits to 'the good life'. And he distinguishes the many kinds of meanings that gardens may have, from their representation of nature to their spiritual significance. A Philosophy of Gardens willopen up this subject to students and scholars of aesthetics, ethics, and cultural and environmental studies, and to anyone with a reflective interest in things horticultural.

Gain some new ideas along with the principles and history of Japanese stone gardening with this useful and beautiful garden design book. Japanese Stone Gardens provides a comprehensive introduction to the powerful mystique and dynamism of the Japanese stone garden—from their earliest use as props in animistic rituals, to their appropriation by Zen monks and priests to create settings conducive to contemplation and finally to their contemporary uses and meaning. With insightful text and abundant imagery, this book reveals the hidden order of stone gardens and in the process heightens the enthusiast's appreciation of them. The Japanese stone garden is an art form recognized around the globe. These meditative gardens provide tranquil settings, where visitors can shed the burdens and stresses of modern existence, satisfy an age-old yearning for solitude and repose, and experience the restorative power of art and nature. For this reason, the value of the Japanese stone garden today is arguably even greater than when many of them were created. Fifteen gardens are featured in this book: some well known, such as the famous temple gardens of Kyoto, others less so, among them gardens spread through the south of Honshu Island and the southern islands of Shikoku and Kyushu and in faraway Okinawa.

With literally hundreds of choices, it can be overwhelming to decide which perennials to plant in your garden. Nancy J. Ondra takes the stressful guesswork out of perennial garden planning by offering 52 vibrant designs, each made up of only five plants. Ondra tailors each simple design to a specific set of growing conditions, with plenty of tips to help your planting mature. Enjoy gardens full of sun-drenched blooming flowers and shade-loving greenery for years to come.

One of our finest writers on one of her greatest loves. Jamaica Kincaid's first garden in Vermont was a plot in the middle of her front lawn. There, to the consternation of more experienced friends, she planted only seeds of the flowers she liked best. In My Garden (Book) she gathers all she loves about gardening and plants, and examines it generously, passionately, and with sharp, idiosyncratic discrimination. Kincaid's affections are matched in intensity only by her dislikes. She loves spring and summer but cannot bring herself to love winter, for it hides the garden. She adores the rhododendron Jane Grant, and appreciates ordinary Blue Lake string beans, but abhors the Asiatic lily. The sources of her inspiration -- seed catalogues, the gardener Gertrude Jekyll, gardens like Monet's at Giverny -- are subjected to intense scrutiny. She also examines the idea of the garden on Antigua, where she grew up. My Garden (Book) is an intimate, playful, and penetrating book on gardens, the plants that fill them, and the persons who tend them.

maps out how the garden is perceived, designed, used, and valued

Teach children that the greatest rewards come from patience, hard work, and learning from mistakes! In the #1 New York Times bestseller We Are the Gardeners, Joanna Gaines and the kids chronicle the adventures of starting their own family garden. From their failed endeavors, obstacles to overcome (bunnies that eat everything), and all of the knowledge they gain along the way, the Gaines family shares how they learned to grow a happy, successful garden. We Are the Gardeners is a whimsical picture book perfect for: Ages 4-8 Parents, libraries, classroom story times, and discussions focusing on springtime and gardening Households that enjoy watching HGTV's Fixer Upper Young children and families interested in gardening and plants After reading, children will learn: Trying something new isn't always easy, but the hardest work often yields the greatest reward The basic steps and process of starting a garden The importance of patience and how it is possible to learn from your mistakes You and your children will learn all about the Gaines family's story of becoming gardeners in Joanna's first children's book--starting with the first little fern Chip bought for Jo. Over the years, the family's love for gardening has blossomed into what is now a beautiful, bustling garden.

"This delightful journal touches the heart and moves the spirit." - The Oregonian An illustrated, round-the-world tour of idiosyncratic gardens from beloved traveler/writer/watercolorist Vivian Swift. Nine masterpiece gardens. Nine stories of grandeur, sorrow, disaster, triumph, discovery, and joy. From Scotland to Key West, from Brazil to Paris--even right next door--there is always something to learn about being human from a great garden.

While we all live our lives in designed landscapes of various types, only on occasion do we consider what these landscapes mean to us and how they have acquired that significance. Can a landscape architect or garden designer really imbue new settings with meaning, or does meaning evolve over time, created by those who perceive and use these landscapes? What role does the selection and arrangement of plants and hard materials play in this process and just where does the passage of time enter into the equation? These questions collectively provide the core material for Meaning in Landscape Architecture and Gardens, a compendium of four landmark essays written over a period of twenty years by leading scholars in the field of landscape architecture. New commentaries by the authors accompany each of the essays and reflect on the thinking behind them as well as the evolution of the author’s thoughts since their original publication. Although the central theme of these writings is landscape architecture broadly taken, the principal subject of several essays and commentaries is the garden, a subject historically plentiful in allusions and metaphors. As a whole Meaning in Landscape Architecture and Gardens offers the general reader as well as the professional a rich source of ideas about the designed landscape and the ways by which we perceive, consider, react, and dwell within them – and what they mean to us. The essays have been perennial favorites in landscape courses since their original publication in Landscape Journal. Bringing them together – bolstered by the new commentaries – creates a book valuable to all those creating gardens and landscapes, as well as those teaching and studying these subjects.