Review of Garden Design for Everyone Volume II
32 posts
[Following is a volunteer review of "Garden Design for Everyone Volume II" by Robin Johnson.]
I recently watched a documentary about health and diet, the ethics of animal farming, and humane solutions. I was shaken by a stark realization about how difficult it could be in the near future to get healthy, edible, and fresh food. The adulterated, chemically regenerated kind could be easily accessible but may have long-term health impacts. The good, fresh, and healthy kinds of food would be rare and difficult to procure, and hence, end up being very expensive. One way to escape this problem would be to grow your food in your backyard and become self-sufficient, at the very least.
Another documentary I watched was about the life of Martha Stewart, wherein she quoted, “If you want to be happy for a year, get married. If you want to be happy for a decade, get a dog, and if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, make a garden”. The last part of the quote is what pushed my interest further in food and vegetable farming, and made me pick this book.
Garden Design for Everyone Volume 2 by Robin Johnson is a handy book for anyone who is planning to have a garden or has a garden and wants to revamp it.
The book provides detailed guidance on understanding the soil, visualizing your gardens, drawing plans, building a decorative garden, selecting plants/trees for structural reinforcement, building garden pathways, and recommending specific plant varieties to fulfill each of these aspects.
There were several things I liked about this book—
Each chapter sets the context at the beginning of what it contains and has a summary at the end. It also provides guidance on how to maintain and upkeep your garden. It is full of illustrations and pictures that help you understand the author’s point.
Further, it instills the importance of creating your vision for what your garden should look like. Without a vision, you are likely to hire a professional garden designer/decorator and get bombarded with their visions and ideas, not to mention the probable deep hole in your pockets. Instead, you could keep it simple and still hire someone to make sure the plan is well-executed and the basics are right. Your vision won’t get lost in translation, and the result will be your creation. This will also help in easy upkeep of your garden later. This was my favorite aspect of this book.
Additionally, I loved the specific plant recommendations provided for each purpose, be it pathways, hedging, color planning, plants for decoration, or structural planning, along with the climate recommendations that should go with it. The rough sketches by the author not only clarified every aspect of garden planning but also uncomplicated the whole idea of having your garden, for even a beginner like me — you don’t need to have a green thumb; just careful thought and planning, logic, and tons of curious observation and patience with the plants will do.
Finally, there was a complete separate chapter for hillside gardens. This was very thoughtful of the author. It showed the author’s attention to detail and the wide experience in this area.
One watch out for the book is that the author mentions/recommends Australian flora and those suited to Australian weather and climate, but in my opinion, this is not a limiting factor of the book. The general advice could still be applied to other regions in the world, and the reader could always look up on the internet for equivalent plants that serve the same purpose in their regions. Hence, the knowledge could still very well be applied anywhere in the world.
I found a few minor grammatical errors but nothing that was distracting or affected my enjoyment while reading this book. There was nothing to dislike about this book.
Therefore, I give this book a rating of 5 out of 5 stars.
There is no mature or sexual content, so it would be appropriate for everyone with an interest in gardening, beginners and experts alike.
The book will be an easy pickup as a reference book whenever planning a garden. The photos and illustrations are pleasing to the eyes and fill you with hope about owning a garden someday.
If one had a decent idea and interest in growing plants and gardening, whether in retirement or just to nurture as a hobby, they would find this book very useful.
Since watching the two documentaries, I have been curious and experimenting with growing plants, and I’m happy to report that this book has given me the confidence to have my garden someday.
******
Garden Design for Everyone Volume II
View: on Bookshelves |
I recently watched a documentary about health and diet, the ethics of animal farming, and humane solutions. I was shaken by a stark realization about how difficult it could be in the near future to get healthy, edible, and fresh food. The adulterated, chemically regenerated kind could be easily accessible but may have long-term health impacts. The good, fresh, and healthy kinds of food would be rare and difficult to procure, and hence, end up being very expensive. One way to escape this problem would be to grow your food in your backyard and become self-sufficient, at the very least.
Another documentary I watched was about the life of Martha Stewart, wherein she quoted, “If you want to be happy for a year, get married. If you want to be happy for a decade, get a dog, and if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, make a garden”. The last part of the quote is what pushed my interest further in food and vegetable farming, and made me pick this book.
Garden Design for Everyone Volume 2 by Robin Johnson is a handy book for anyone who is planning to have a garden or has a garden and wants to revamp it.
The book provides detailed guidance on understanding the soil, visualizing your gardens, drawing plans, building a decorative garden, selecting plants/trees for structural reinforcement, building garden pathways, and recommending specific plant varieties to fulfill each of these aspects.
There were several things I liked about this book—
Each chapter sets the context at the beginning of what it contains and has a summary at the end. It also provides guidance on how to maintain and upkeep your garden. It is full of illustrations and pictures that help you understand the author’s point.
Further, it instills the importance of creating your vision for what your garden should look like. Without a vision, you are likely to hire a professional garden designer/decorator and get bombarded with their visions and ideas, not to mention the probable deep hole in your pockets. Instead, you could keep it simple and still hire someone to make sure the plan is well-executed and the basics are right. Your vision won’t get lost in translation, and the result will be your creation. This will also help in easy upkeep of your garden later. This was my favorite aspect of this book.
Additionally, I loved the specific plant recommendations provided for each purpose, be it pathways, hedging, color planning, plants for decoration, or structural planning, along with the climate recommendations that should go with it. The rough sketches by the author not only clarified every aspect of garden planning but also uncomplicated the whole idea of having your garden, for even a beginner like me — you don’t need to have a green thumb; just careful thought and planning, logic, and tons of curious observation and patience with the plants will do.
Finally, there was a complete separate chapter for hillside gardens. This was very thoughtful of the author. It showed the author’s attention to detail and the wide experience in this area.
One watch out for the book is that the author mentions/recommends Australian flora and those suited to Australian weather and climate, but in my opinion, this is not a limiting factor of the book. The general advice could still be applied to other regions in the world, and the reader could always look up on the internet for equivalent plants that serve the same purpose in their regions. Hence, the knowledge could still very well be applied anywhere in the world.
I found a few minor grammatical errors but nothing that was distracting or affected my enjoyment while reading this book. There was nothing to dislike about this book.
Therefore, I give this book a rating of 5 out of 5 stars.
There is no mature or sexual content, so it would be appropriate for everyone with an interest in gardening, beginners and experts alike.
The book will be an easy pickup as a reference book whenever planning a garden. The photos and illustrations are pleasing to the eyes and fill you with hope about owning a garden someday.
If one had a decent idea and interest in growing plants and gardening, whether in retirement or just to nurture as a hobby, they would find this book very useful.
Since watching the two documentaries, I have been curious and experimenting with growing plants, and I’m happy to report that this book has given me the confidence to have my garden someday.
******
Garden Design for Everyone Volume II
View: on Bookshelves |
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