Customer Reviews

Fabulous Flowerbeds

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The subtitle of "Fabulous Flowerbeds" is "Inspiration - Planting - Care." After reading this book, I'd give it five stars for `inspiration' but if you're looking for a get-down-and-dirty how-to manual on planting and maintaining your flowerbed, there are more instructive books on the market, such as Janet Macunovich's "Caring for Perennials," Peter McHoy's "Practical Gardening," or Tracy DiSabato-Aust's "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden."

"Fabulous Flowerbeds" is very much inspired by Gertrude Jekyll and the natural-looking, freely flowing borders of what we think of as `English' or cottage gardens. There are many beautiful photographs of European (particularly Dutch) gardens (this book's original title is "Die Kunst der Beete") that illustrate different flowerbed styles. The way that flowers of a particular color seem to flow through these beds is particularly inspiring. I also like the creative framing of the more formal beds, using hedges formed into circles, rectangles, or even rippling into waves.

There is one particular bed designed by Dutch landscape artist, Piet Oudolf (page 43) for late-summer display that I'd like to try for myself. It features easy-to-grow Helenium (sneezeweed), Echinacea (coneflower), and Eryngium in shades of red, lavender, and pink. The facing page has an equally splendid bed featuring red hollyhocks, pink roses (`Bonica'), and rose campion.

Suggestions are given for designing kitchen beds, scent gardens, repetitive use of shapes or textures, and of course, designing with particular colours. There is much to inspire in "Fabulous Flowerbeds," using plants that are readily available to American gardeners.

This is a gem of a book. The author and photographer of Fabulous Flowers have compiled an easy to follow guide to designing and planting flowerbeds. The illustrations are inspiring and the advice is clear-cut. There is no empty rhetoric, subjective emotion, or abstract passion about flowers or gardening in the text. The chapters are written with an economy of words that will delight the busy gardener. The information is grounded in reality because right on the first page, before one can begin to read, the author makes clear, with a photograph of a patio table surrounded by a flowerbed, that this is going to be a book about gardens, in which people are as important as plants.

The many topics that the author cover include: the location and purpose of a garden, the contrast between formal and informal flowerbeds, how to design both of these styles, and how to maintain color all year round. The illustrations are lavish and appropriate, even though they are in color schemes that we are unaccustomed to seeing in English style gardens. The photographs will inspire readers, especially those who enjoy the multicolor of wildflower or meadow gardens.

A few details about this book are noteworthy. At first glance, I wondered about the graphic design of the book's cover done in purple and pink.I was also surprised at how many illustrative flowerbeds were composed using hot colored flowers. I was then amused at the precise no-nonsense language used to instruct. Then I realized that the original publication was in a foreign language and targeted at another culture. That explained everything. Do not be put off by the colors of the graphic design, do not allow yourself be influenced by the preponderance of hot colored gardens, and try to ignore the stilted translation from the original German text. Focus, instead, on the advice and on the instructions. This is a valuable manual.

Two features of this book stand out for this reviewer. One is the collection of blueprints for planting perennials in drifts that appears at the end of the book. This technical information is essential for those who plant gardens in the English style. Few authors include such a guide in their work, even though they might mention its importance. The second aspect that is noteworthy is the chapter on color theory. Many of us already understand how opaque and overwhelming this topic can present itself. In the hands of Ms. Keil, everything we need to know about color in the garden is summarized efficiently and is easy to understand. There is no need to navigate through the effusive verbosity that we sometimes find in the garden writings of some authors.

This book is available through Amazon Marketplace. This is where suppliers offer both new and used copies of books at hard-to-believe prices. I purchased my new copy for fifty cents. Had I opted for a used copy, I would have paid only one cent. Of course, shipping was $3.99, a pittance for the acquisition of such an important book.