Customer Reviews

The Art of Japanese Gardens: Designing & Making Your Own Peaceful Space

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I sent this book as a present for my sister and she loved it. Presently, she is studying landscape engineering. We are both of the opinion that this would assist both the beginner and more advanced landscape students. Not only does it have great ideas, but it expresses it from both visual and written perspectives. This is highly recommended.

This book has some lovely photographs, but is very short on any real detail or practical information on making a japanese garden in your own home. I found it much less useful than the Ortho book on Japanese Gardens. I would not recommend it. There are better books for appreciation and better practical guides.

Take a peak at the excerpt provided. you will notice some acer palmatum japanese maples, in a section for cedar fences, for bamboo fences, fence railing. A back section for plant common and latin names. The are some very rough hand drawings no diagrams. Take a look at the index, look for the words "designing", "making", "creating", or "building".

Coffee table book...get it.
Sunset or Ortho type...don't.

This book is not about Japanese gardens, whatever the title. I have read a lot of books about Japanese gardens but the content of this book is not in concordance with what other authors write about Japanese gardens.
Foto 4-7 is referred to as a bright, flashy and colourfull Chinese-style gazebo in a cultivated Japanese garden. The foto though shows indeed a Chinese-style structure but the garden shows a two-tier fountain with a manneke-piss on top .... in a Japanese garden?
The foto's are nice but nowhere are there descriptions given of what it is or where it is.
Then there are a lot of fotos of beautiful acers, but nowhere is there a connection to the text.
And finally there are the drawings and the maps/designs. The drawings, to me, are basic but ok. The maps/designs are terrible: they are inconclusive and no time nor effort is put into it to make them at least look good or in any way professional.
To me this book is an absolute waste of money.