Handmade Garden Projects: Step-by-Step Instructions for Creative Garden Features, Containers, Lighting & More [Paperback]

Lorene Edwards Forkner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 6, 2011

You can transform your garden into a handmade, personality-infused oasis. Author Lorene Edwards Forkner — part eco-friendly non-traditionalist, part crafty creative — will show you how.

Projects run the gamut from eye-catching structures, like a pergola made from plumbing pipes, to imaginative details, like a tree-hung chandelier for nighttime ambiance. You'll also find helpful plant guides to accompany projects: delectable herbs to fill a stacking container tower, stellar succulents for a vertical gutter garden, glorious flowering vines to climb a bamboo obelisk, and so much more.

Ready to get started? All you need are refreshingly simple, inexpensive materials — hardware store basics, salvaged goods, repurposed castoffs from cluttered basements — along with a little do-it-yourself spirit. With clear instructions and inspiring variations on every theme, this book is easy to follow and easy to love. Your journey to a made-from-scratch outdoor space starts here.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

As unique as a fingerprint . . . handmade gardens reveal the creative vision and personality of the gardener in charge. Creating outdoor spaces of character, comfort, and fun involves scouring garage sales, your own garage, and building-salvage yards with such recyclables as broken ladders (for climbing flowers) and follies, fanciful outbuilding features like the tiny vintage trailer in Forkner’s Aluminum Garden surrounded by silver, green, and white plantings. Landscaping foundations—ground-level pathways and patios with pebbled mosaic accents or mown-lawn labyrinths—draw the eye upward to industrial rock-screen trellises and scrap-metal window ledges supporting planters. Old water jars and catch-basin sections become fountains; plumbing-pipe pergolas sport canvas drop-cloth awnings; industrial light fixtures contain outdoor terraria; and old shutters are turned into shelf storage/plant stands. Each project comes complete with lists of needed materials and tools, instructions, and recommended plantings. Whimsy is the watchword here, even as Forkner provides full-color photos, practical conversion tables, hardiness zones, and resource listings in this innovative addition to DIY creativity. --Whitney Scott

Review

“Whimsy is the watchword here, even as Forkner provides full-color photos, practical conversion tables, hardiness zones, and resources listings in this innovative addition to DIY creativity.” (Booklist )

“The book is filled with ideas for turning unused items and common materials into decorative and functional garden accents.” (Akron Beacon Journal )

“The book is part inspiration and part manual, but for anyone comfortable working with simple tools and construction materials there is just enough step-by-step instruction to get started.” (San Francisco Chronicle )

“There are fun, do-able things in this book.” (Philadelphia Inquirer )

“If you need a little inspiration for infusing your personality into your own garden, be sure to check out her book.” (Digging )

“A creative new book…filled with ideas and instructions with DIY ideas from fountains to fire pits.” (Valerie Easton Plant Talk )

“Fresh take on life outdoors.” (San Diego Home & Garden Magazine )

"If you are wondering what's in this book for plant nerds, the good news is: Plenty." (Debra Prinzing Pacific Horticulture )

"[Offers] pretty unique creative weekend projects." (Poppytalk )

"Her instructions are practical, her aesthetic pleasingly funky." (The Seattle Times )

"A series of well-photographed and inspiring garden visits and projects, meant to enhance your garden." (Danger Garden )

"A collection of simple and inspiring projects that take your garden--be it balcony, small or large--to the next level and reflect your personality and taste." (Treehugger )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 210 pages
• Publisher: Timber Press (December 6, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781604691856
• ISBN-13: 978-1604691856
• ASIN: 1604691859
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,005 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Garden Furnishings
  • #65 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Garden Design

More About the Author

A Seattle-based freelance writer, Lorene Edwards Forkner pursues a good and delicious life filled with travel, good food, family and friends together with all things horticultural, believing that the really good part is in the blending of one's passions.

Whether evaluating a favorite plant, reveling in the changing light of the season, or enjoying the exquisite flavor of a juicy peach or the first garden salad of the year, Lorene never tires of exploring the colors, textures and details of the natural world. And she loves a good story.

A popular speaker with a warm engaging manner, Lorene is always eager to weigh in on horticultural mysteries, offer direction for design conundrums, and teach DIY gardeners how to dig in and craft a personal landscape that fits their lifestyle while living lightly on the planet. Lorene contributes to several regional gardening publications and reaches a larger audience through her blog Plantedathome.com where she muses on home, garden, work and play.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes me want to get outside and craft! December 30, 2011

By Gen of North Coast Gardening TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

There's some fantastic inspiration here for the savvy craftsperson. Each project has simple step-by-step instructions along with a full-page color photo (or three) showing you the end result.

What I love best about this book is that it's helped me repurpose some of the trash I had waiting in the "go to the dump" pile. The rings from a discarded oak barrel will now be repurposed as a mold for garden stepping stones, which were shown early in the book. And some of the ideas don't require any money at all, like creating "temporary turf tattoos" in the lawn using your mower. What a fun way of celebrating a holiday, to mow a pattern into the lawn to cheer passers-by.

Is this a book of gift ideas? Maybe. Some of the projects are small enough to transport easily and would make great gifts. Others are large, heavy, or simply must be made in the owner's garden, so wouldn't wrap up well for a gift occasion. But enough of the ideas are good for this purpose that I'm certainly glad I got it a few months before my mom's birthday, just in case I want to make a project for her! I have a few pages bookmarked as possibilities for all the gardeners in my life.

My one quibble is that many of the photos in the book look a bit messy or "country". For example, in the page showing you how to make a tabletop knot garden (a very classy idea), the finished result is shown in a Red Flyer wagon. It's hard to imagine a more disparate pairing than an elegant French or English knot garden with a kid's red wagon - it just didn't work for me. In another photo of steel tanks used as planting beds (a look that can be marvelously urban and chic), the photographer didn't remove the red and white label from the tank. That may have been intentional to give an authentic country feeling, but to me, it didn't let the potential beauty of this project shine.

So if you have an artistic eye and can visualize the potential in a project even if the presentation in the photo isn't what you might personally do, then you're in for a real treat with this book. And don't get me wrong, most of the photos are stunning. The author did a particularly good job on her photos of projects using succulents, creating elegant pairings that would shine in any garden.

The biggest strength of this book is that it makes garden projects seem approachable and fun, and gives you the confidence to do your own creative projects in the garden. If you have always wanted to add a few personal touches to your garden, but were unsure of how to do it, this book will give you a good grounding in the basic techniques and materials you'll be working with, and will provide ample inspiration for getting started.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous garden project book February 6, 2012

By Lori Katz

Format:Paperback

This is such a gorgeous book that I have read it cover to cover two times. I've also just glanced at the photos many times. While I haven't tried any of the projects yet I've been on the lookout for a rowboat to put on the side of my house as shown in the book! I was inspired to turn a broken teapot into a planter and I now have a lovely fern growing on my sunny windowsill. And at a local thrift store I picked up a wicker doll stroller and turned that into a planter too. I just love the ideas in this book and look forward to some springtime projects.

Read as an ebook courtesy of Timber Press via Netgalley.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book Even If You Lack a Green Thumb January 6, 2012

By Isadore Ann VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Okay, so I don't have a green thumb, but I do enjoy creative projects and having a nice garden. That's why I was so anxious to read this book. I really thought this book did a great job of speaking to novice gardeners as well as those with more experience. They offered very smart, common sense tips about how to start a gardening project, by asking yourself things like what's the goal of your garden (to entertain, grow veggies, etc.), what kind of climate issues are you dealing with, and how much time are you going to realistically have to maintain it.

They also talked about using various materials for different projects, and showed the versatility in each. By far the best section, though, involved the ideas for different garden layouts and projects. There were a wide range of project ideas, and I thought most people would be able to pull them off, even if they weren't particularly creative. Also, the pictures throughout the book are absolutely gorgeous.