Designs for American Gardens

Alice Recknagel Ireys provides a personalized glimpse into the art of designing gardens. Peppered with descriptions of the gardens of friends and acquaintances, she describes how each tackled the problems of a particular lot. She provides color photographic shots from different angles, both close-up and from a distance. The garden schematic layout is also provided for each in a colored drawing, complete with the names of the specific plantings used. Lest you feel that Ireys's book is too specific, the photographs and descriptions act as inspiration. The combinations of plantings, all listed with the cultivars, show these specimens in their mature stages and thus provide a good guide for planning one's own garden. The book includes multiple examples on one-half acre, one to two acre, three to five acre, five to ten acre, and more than ten acre lots. The final section describes some of Ivreys's favorite plantings in the categories of trees, shade-loving shrubs, and flowers arranged by their month-by-month bloom times. This design book is not comprehensive enough to act alone as a guide if you are deciding your own landscaping; however, it makes a fantastic supplement. I don't recommend this book if you live in planting zones further south than Virginia, or in climates that differ greatly from the Mid-Atlantic States and southern New England.