Front Yard Landscaping

Pools and Spas Ideas for Planning Designing and Landscaping

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Pools and Spas
There are some good ideas and landscape ideas in this book for designing spas and pools. In the end I probably only spent 20 minutes in this book and didn’t get a whole lot out of it. We spent a considerable amount of money on our pool but we live in Arizona and the landscape ideas didn’t apply to this climate. Overall, lots of pretty pictures. 2 out of 5 stars.

5 Stars Another Winner in Pool Books!
I borrowed this book from the library (too many pool books are not worth buying), and spent the rest of the night looking at it. Great photo examples of various types of pools that are described in detail, along with chapters on Safety, Design, Landscaping, Materials, etc… One of the best! (Same review as Pool & Spa Planner by Better Homes & Gardens, because they are both great books!)

4 Stars Great read
We needed to rennovate a pool that we inherited with the purchase of our house last year. This book provided many insights into design, landscaping, decking and general useful information on owning a pool.

4 Stars We Borrowed Then Bought!
We also borrowed this from the library, but found we didn’t want to return it. We spent hours showing each other what pictures we really liked, got great tips on thhe issues the pool owner faces and have a real idea of what we need to consider. So, since we want to use this during the planning process, we bought it!

5 Stars Great info, great pictures, recommended resource
There are a lot of pretty home design books out there that have very little information tucked between the pictures. This book is full of information but also has a number of handsome photos of pools, spas, and water gardens which will give you ideas if you are planning a custom designed pool or tub. It’s a great resource for someone thinking of installing these features in their backyard, and it also touches on landscaping, lighting, and even sauans.

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Home Landscaping Texas Home Landscaping

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Home Landscaping Texas
Good book and reference for landscaping design for Texas. I was disappointed that more actual photo designs were not present.

5 Stars GREAT RESOURCE FOR EVERY TYPE OF GARDENER!!
I’m a Master Gardener and this a great book – very clearly written – great illustrations – I use it often and recommend it to all gardeners no matter what their experience level.

5 Stars useful
An excellent book for beginners. It features great landscape designs and a good overview of plants. Colorful illustrations, easy to read and practical. I highly recommend it.

3 Stars Errors make me scared to try his plans.
This was one of the first landscaping books I purchased when I moved back to Texas and bought a newly constructed (read barren all but grass) house. It IS very inspirational and I always thought that it would be the first book I would reach for when I could afford to start my major landscaping project around my property. Now I’m ready to really begin planting and I’ve bought a few other books in the past few weeks to assist me in planning. (Other reviewers who say that you’ll also need a plant guide specific to Texas are right, in my opinion. The plants the author picks may do well in Texas, but they’re not necessarily natives and some will need special attention in the vastly different growing conditions throughout our great state.) I really thought the other books I purchased would supplement this one but then I sat down with all my books, pencil and graph paper, my property survey, and my local (native) nursery’s plant list. I was finally making actual plans, not dreaming about it.

What do I see on page 28 as I work on plans for my front bed? A Red Oak planted 7 feet from the front window. HUH? I’ll confess myself to be a novice but I’m not THAT much of a novice! Most people with a shred of common sense know that a tree that will eventually attain both a height and spread of 80 feet should not be planted anywhere near that close to your house.

Sadly, the book does not have any actual photos of the landscape designs presented, only illustrations. Lovely though they may be, they are not necessarily realistic. I’m guessing that a real picture of a Red Oak 7 feet from a home might be hard to find, since few people would be silly enough to do it. Due to my lack of faith in the plans, this book rapidly went to the bottom of the pile for my planning. Even the plant portraits he provides (the only photos in the book) could be found in better books.

Here’s something interesting. If you click on the author’s name above, you will see that he’s produced these landscape designs for almost every region in the US. So, I’m guessing this is actually a mass-market production. I would be interested in comparing the Texas book to the others to see if there are many differences. I have a guess already. In this book, he does discuss hardiness zones but in every other Texas landscaping book I have, the actual regions of Texas are the focus. Hmmm, specifics about Texas in a book with Texas in the title. How novel.

Some books I can recommend wholeheartedly are the following (in the order I think they’re useful to my paper and pencil, real, true planning):

Texas Wildscapes: Gardening for Wildlife LOVE LOVE LOVE it! This book does it all. I’m particularly interested in attracting birds and butterflies to my yard. This book discusses the regions of Texas and their different needs, gives you a step-by-step plan for developing your own landscape design and gives a rundown of the needs of local wildlife and instructions for completing specific projects. You will need a supplemental plant guide though because this book is not photo rich in that area. The book was poorly reviewed for having a vast plant list that was not searchable but someone from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. left a review telling how to get the searchable index by e-mail. I got it within hours of sending off a request.

Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by RegionWONDERFUL! Gives professional quality landscaping plans for each region plus other landscaping plans for specific needs like wildlife, water, etc. It also has an excellent written and photo description of the plants she uses.

Landscaping with Native Plants of Texas If you’re not interested in the Wildlife book above, this one is another that presents a great step-by-step plan for the creation of your own landscape design. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give any sample plans for you to look at like Native Texas Plants does. It does offer some useful information about wildlife and xeriscaping.

Month by Month Gardening in Texas: What to Do Each Month to Have a Beautiful Garden All Year (Month-By-Month Gardening in Texas) Excellent book for the planner. Not what to plant but a calendar to tell you when. It might make you puzzle about how hard it is to find a tree or perennials at Home Depot or Lowe’s in Fall and Winter but check out your local nursery that carries natives and you’ll find plenty.)

Texas Gardening the Natural Way: The Complete HandbookHoward Garrett is widely recognized as an authority on Texas gardening and uses organic methods. The book has an excellent section with photos and descriptions of all kinds of plants but lacks the landscaping plans I was after. Also, they’re not all natives although not everyone minds that so I included it in this list because it is a good reference.

5 Stars Home Landscaping Texas
When I received my book I was surprised at what good condition it was in. It could have passed for brand new. I feel like I got a much better book than I was expecting. I would order used books in the future.

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Orthos All About Orchids Orthos All About Gardening

Helps beginning orchid growers develop the skills necessary to progress to more difficult ones.

Plenty of information to inspire more advanced orchid growers.

Provides a basic understanding of optimum environment for growing orchids.

Helpful hints for creating that ideal environment.

Explains potting, staking, and dividing orchids.

Teaches about orchid growth patterns, and shows how to handle plants based on those patterns.

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Information From Photos: poor
Summary: With the thousands of books about orchids, look a little further until you find a better book than this.

This book is designed for the person who doesn’t know much about orchids, but wants to learn. Photographs are included with the intention of conveying information – but the quality of the paper, or the printing process, results in almost adequate resolution. Meridth Publishing must think photographic quality isn’t important for this type of book, because it isn’t designed to be photography book, but with low quality images, one can’t distinguish that flowers shown are orchids, let alone be able to compare the images to gain a better understanding of the types of orchids – which is exactly part of the theoretical content of this book.

The person new to orchids will want to know how to pronounce the new vocabulary. Very limited information is provided in this area.

3 Stars General Info
I found this book a little too general..and actually did not answer my pending questions about the cattleyas…still some valued info of a general nature about other varieties warrants by keeping it.It is good for identifying species and family.

4 Stars A Good Beginners Book
If you are just starting out with orchids, this is a great, low cost, book for basic information and great for a quick reminder to the experienced grower when obtaining new orchids. I would not say this is the last book you will ever need if serious about growing orchids, but it a good place to start!

4 Stars A Great Beginners Book
Ifyou are looking for a comprehensive beginner’s guide to orchids at a reasonable price this is it. The book is well organized, easy to understand, and decently illustrated. Photos and quality may not be of the best quality, but you can find those in one of the many other pictorial guides to orchids available. If you want to get growing, this book is a great start.

5 Stars Excellent
This is a truly excellent starter and it’s great for the medium level amatuer, too. There is a lot of information, yet it’s not succint. The quality of the pictures is not satisfactory, however, this is one of the very few books which show overall plants, as opposed to show macro of flowers only. This is not a minor point: when I placed my first order online, I decided I was not going to buy dendrobium, because I don’t like the plant. While this reflect my personal taste, knowng how the overall plants look like was a major plus. Moreover this book teaches how to measure the light intensity by simply using the lightmeter of your TTL camera. To me this information alone is worth the price of admission.

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Home Landscaping Midwest Region Including Southern Canada Home Landscaping

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Good ideas for Michigan landscaping
This book is a good source for midwest-specific plantings and landscape ideas. I found I didn’t have to look up the growing zones of plants I found interesting, wondering “Would this plant grow well around here?”

I also enjoy the overall friendly tone of the text. Some other books of this type that I own are written in a stuffy, almost highbrow manner.

The only thing I would have liked to have seen more of in this book is more actual photographs of the landscapes. There are many photos of the featured plants, but the book relies heavily on artwork for the landscape design images.

5 Stars Home landscaping book review
This was a very helpful book – straightforward and practical ideas for plantings around my house & yard. It included planting layout diagrams, plant list and sketches of what things might look like during different seasons.

5 Stars Excellent resource for Ohio gardening
This book is a tremendous resource for landscaping in the midwest. It provides great ideas for landscaping for different seasons, conditions, and locations. Most of the recommended varieties of plants are easy to find at your local nursery which has always been a problem with other books I have used. The pictures and drawings really provide extreme value when trying to picture how plants will look together. It has already given me enumerous great ideas and suggestions.

5 Stars An excellent resource!
A big problem I’ve had with gardening books is that they so often cover areas with different climates (such as the wet Pacific Northwest) than that which I have to face here in the American Midwest. This book, however, has shown itself to be an excellent resource!

It starts out with a portfolio of 23 designs, giving the reader excellent advice on appearance and what plants to use, complete with color pictures, and a sample graph paper design. After that, it has step-by-step instructions (again with great color illustrations) on building projects, such as sidewalks, walls, patios and so much more. The final part of the book is a series of plant profiles that looks at garden plants and their needs.

So, just to make everything perfectly clear, I loved this book, and highly recommend it to every gardener in the American Midwest!

4 Stars Great for planning a seasonal garden!
I’m no expert on landscaping, so it is nice to have a book that gives the reader some great ideas for a full eye-popping visual. Best of all, these are all plants that can be found in the midwest region. I like that many of the plant layouts are seasonal, helping to create different gardens for variations of season and sunlight. There’s also a few tips on creating pathways and tresses. There is an updated version, but it doesn’t differ from this book, it only adds a new section that is really not needed.

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Home Landscaping Northeast Region Including Southeast Canada Home Landscaping Home Landscaping

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Love this book!!
I have so many landscaping books that I never opened again after the first week I bought them. This is not one of those books. It’s by far so much better than most of the other ones out there. It’s well organized for info, and the plans are numerous and easy to follow. Not just for beginners. a really great book!

5 Stars One of my favorites
I recently became interested in gardening (now that I have a yard in which I can plant). This is one of my favorite books on gardening and landscaping. Great resource for those of us living in the northeast. Full of wonderful photos, explanations and illustrations. It gives many ideas for addressing certain areas of your yard (i.e. front entryway, patio, rock wall). Explanations are excellent; I learned a great deal from this book. Very well written. Highly recommended.

5 Stars Curb appeal made easy
It’s great the way these books are customized for each individual climate area here in the U.S. Saves a lot of wasted planning with the wrong plants and materials.

5 Stars Have my own and now purchasing for a neighbor!!
A neighbor showed me her copy and I had to get one for myself. Great layouts, great plant selections, this book offers great ideas and variations and is FULL of information! I showed another neighbor the garden I am planning and now I’m buying her a copy as well. We are going to have a GREAT looking street!!

5 Stars This book is wonderful
Home Landscaping: Northeast Region is a very informative book filled with beautiful photos. I don’t think I will need another book while doing our landscape planning. Landscaping designs, expected sizes of plants and trees and shrubs, different colors and species, how to’s, this book will cover all your landscaping needs if you live in new england.

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Home Landscaping Mid Atlantic Region Home Landscaping Home Landscaping

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Loved It
This book was wonderful because it had lots of picture to draw ideas from. It also had information on different seasons and how the plants would be affected. It was so helpful to me.

5 Stars Great Book!
I am new to gardening and I am have cleared out my backyard, I had no idea what I was doing or what kind of plants to put where until I read this book. It also has good ideas for building patios… great illustrations too!

5 Stars Wonderful resource.
This book is a wonderful resource. The book is full of design ideas shown in site plans, 3-D renderings, and with great close up photos of the flowers, scrubs, and trees. Many designs are shown in each season and in a progression of how it will look in three to five years and then in ten to fifteen years. I found this book to be very helpful in designing flower beds, in picking plantings, and in knowing how to care for each planting.

5 Stars Good use of Native Species
I’m not under 13, but I didn’t want to give my name and email.

This book is great. It takes advantage of some great underused native plants from the Mid Atlantic. It is very helpful because it provides plant spacing and maintenance. Most plants are low maintenance, all year interest.

I have used the landscape plans in my yard and will continue to use this book as my number one reference.

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Orthos All About Creating Japanese Gardens Orthos All About Gardening

These days, people crave gardens that fill the soul and comfort the body. Japanese gardening answers those yearnings.

This book demonstrates how to:

• Create a feeling of sanctuary
• Make tranquil spaces
• Arrange plants and ornaments

Use centuries-old garden design techniques:

• Emphasize personal taste
• Calm a busy lifestyle
• Inspire peace of mind

Reflect nature to create serenity:

• Appropriate plant selections
• Traditional design
• Contemporary looks

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Great intro
I got this book from the library and was pleasantly surprised at the details and useful, practical advice on conceiving and executing a japanese garden. The book contains detailed instructions on how to lay out, build, select plans for, and maintain a Japanese-inspired garden. It talks about rocks, rock gardening, ponds, water plants and fish, paths, stepping stones, gates, and plants and plant selections. I found it really helpful in getting ideas to give to our landscape architect. I would recommend this book for anyone that is going to actually build (rather than just enjoy looking at pictures of) a japanese garden.

5 Stars For inspiration, start here
I’ve always wanted to have a Japanese Garden but never got around to doing it. I picked up this book at the library and, WOW, it has really inspired me! Not only am I now drafting up plans to turn a corner of my yard into a Japanese Garden but I showed it to a neighbor and he’s thinking of making his backyard into something like the courtyard garden on page 20. I’ll probably get a library of books on Japanese Gardening but this book will be the first one I’ll buy.

5 Stars Good for beginners
The book is easy to read and explains the whole concept of Japanese gardening. I learned with it and will be using it to plan my Japanese garden. Very pleased customer!

5 Stars Book great, sticker bad
Seller applied an inventory control sticker to front of book. This sticker used an adhesive that was very difficult to remove; required GooGone. Suggest change stickers, use one that doesn’t damage front of book. After sticker was removed, book proved to be factual with great illustrations.

5 Stars Build Your Japanese Garden and spent your free time golfing
I bought serveral books about creating Japanese gardens. This book by far the best one that I had. I built a Japanese style Rock Garden so I don’t have to mow my lawn. My back yard is built based on some of the pictures and tips I read from this book. The fun part is that you put in your hard work and built the garden you wanted which pays off when your guests give you thumb up. I spent about $5000 on the materials and hours of my own labor on the project. Now I can spent my weekend golfing instead of mowing my lawn. Ouch! My back still hurting from all the hardwork.

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