Customer Reviews

Gardens Are For People, Third edition: With a new preface

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I loved to read this book. After reading it you can clearly see how much Thomas Church influenced the modern designers. I really enojoyed reading the needs of the clients for their garden and then how Church solved and designed great gardens based on the clients'needs. A Classic.

Thomas Church was a "founding father" in modern landscape design thought. He wrote this book to showcase his ideas about it.

If you have read even a few landscaping books, you will find that most of the ideas expressed will be familiar to you and won't be of much help to design your specific garden. I felt the yard and garden examples in the book were dated (as in 1960s, 1970s, 1980s looking).

Finally, I was disappointed in both the printing and the photo examples. All the pictures were black & white, and they all were rather crudely printed. This made it difficult to see details within the photos.

On the up side, the text is good reading for those seeking to become a landscape designer, be he amatuer or professional. And if you DO want to do "retro" designs, the examples ARE well done.

This is one of the most influential books about the need to humanize the art and science of creating outdoor living spaces. A must read for all who dream and work toward the goal of creating living art.

This is a revised version of the hardback printed in the 50's. It was revised by his long time assistant Grace Hall whom he trusted and adored. It has a more indepth look at his own home which still looks the same to this day. The original hardback version can be found if we like you.