Customer Reviews

French Garden Style

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This is my favourite book on French gardens (and there are a few around). It's not full of classical palace parks like Versailles, Vaux-le-Vicomte etc, but private and smaller gardens. Villandry and Courances are the only great and famous included. But this offers you a better variation on the best of the French gardens. The chapters are not on regions as such, but on styles (that follows regions mostly however). Italian and English influences are present. Other styles are 'Natural' and 'Idyllic'. The photography is almost perfection. The printing is also extremely good. The short texts are somewhat lacking in information of species depicted so it's firstly a coffee-table book. I've browsed it at least a hundred times over the years and is still impressed with it.

I love this book! This is definitely the most beautiful garden book that I have come across! The pages are filled with gorgeous photography and the writing is superb and very detailed (although sometimes a little bit too detailed if you're not into serious gardening).

The book is divided into six chapters and altogether, thirty four gardens are featured. The gardens are not divided by locations, but rather by their styles. There are some well known gardens featured such as Monet's Giverny, but most gardens are privately owned and are not known to the general public.

Even though I'm not into gardening that much, I still enjoyed looking at the gorgeous photos, they're large, bold and very colorful and they make you want to crawl inside the pages and daydream. I highly recommend this book, whether you're into gardening or if you just appreciate good photography. I especially loved the photos where you see an old chateau or a family estate peeking through in the background enveloped by its awe inspiring gardens.

The only thing that I would change about this book is the title, since I would like to stress that all the gardens featured in this book are happily located in France, but by the title "French Garden Style" is sounds like the gardens have a French style but may not necesseraly be located in France. It's not a big deal, I just thought I would mention it.

This is one of those books that you want to savor it very slowly. It's a good way to escape from the hustle and bustle of a busy life.