The Harmonious Garden: Color, Form, and Texture [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Catherine Ziegler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003

In The Harmonious Garden, Catherine Ziegler describes fail-safe design methods. Even novice gardeners can compose plant arrangements that successfully incorporate color, form, and texture. The first section presents 149 integrated compositions. Ziegler fully describes the plants in each arrangement: Latin name, quantity and size, environment, and USDA zones. Full-color photographs illustrate each composition, and the author discusses the key principles underlying each harmonious design. The second section offers more detailed information with suggestions for successful design combinations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For many gardeners, selecting pleasing plant combinations is a hit-or-miss affair, largely reliant on ideas poached from nursery catalogues, neighbors or magazines and books. This thoughtful volume takes much of the guesswork out of garden design and should endear Ziegler, a professional landscape designer, to rank-and-file green thumbers as well as to her peers. Her show-and-tell approach is particularly useful: starting with a 16-color wheel to explain the principles of color harmony, Ziegler instructs readers in harmonious plantings with photographs of successful combinations. Organized by hue (Blue/White, Violet/Yellow-Orange, etc.), the pictures are accompanied by accessible discussions of composition, form and texture, as well as nuts-and-bolts information on optimum plant quantities and space and environment requirements. A lengthy section on individual plants includes the expected information on lighting, moisture and zone recommendations and additional noteworthy associations (accompanying plants). There are several appendices and cross-reference lists to boot. It's a rare gardening book that offers substance enough for the expert without intimidating the beginner: Ziegler accomplishes that feat with aplomb, and her book will be as rewarding to those who read it closely as it is to the browser.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Ziegler delves deeply into color harmonies, complementary forms, and the importance of textural contrasts, providing thoughtful and thought-provoking design advice for experienced perennial gardeners motivated to experiment with color, form, and texture in order to create plant combinations that both surprise and please the eye. And studying this book will be a truly illuminating horticultural foray for beginning gardeners with an appetite for learning about those elements that can transform a grouping of plants into a lovely association. Cultural conditions are also emphasized, encouraging reflection on the importance of placement. Descriptive color photographs illustrate Ziegler's comprehensive inquiry, followed by a lengthy section devoted to plant listings that include cultural details along with inspired ideas for stunning beds and borders. Alice Joyce --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: Timber Press (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881925977
• ISBN-13: 978-0881925975
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,605,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Basic principles of color and form, September 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Harmonious Garden: Color, Form, and Texture (Hardcover)

Generally, an excellent reference. The author methodically and analytically (if you appreciate that sort of thing) takes the reader through combinations of color and form and explains why the combinations work. The author's taste in color is subtle, however, and you will not be shown high contrast or exciting color combinations. The same restraint applies in the author's use of form. There are appendices that discuss various plants and combinations, although not in depth.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even more information that the title suggests, March 23, 2003

By 

Patricia Tryon (Longmont, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Harmonious Garden: Color, Form, and Texture (Hardcover)

In addition to more than 140 attractive combinations, with color photos and drawings to illustrate exactly what makes up the plantings in each photo, this book contains a load of practical and insightful observations. It's a treasure for UK, European, and US gardeners with its careful and accurate attention to zones; it's an inspiration to gardeners everywhere because of the education it offers about what underlies this author's ideas about combining plants.

Each planting combination has a photo and annotated drawing, as well as three to six or so paragraphs which are loaded with tremendously valuable data points. How much space might the combination be expected to occupy? What foliar changes occur as the plant occurs? What is unique about the combination's color, form, texture? Do any of the plants re-seed? What compatible plantings would extend the season of interest? When in the season was the photo taken?

There is a separate section with details about specific plants included in the combinations. Three appendices (bloom options by exposure, season, and color [which increases the value of this book far beyond the combinations it suggests]); foliar options; an extensive cross-reference between common and botanic names) add much more value. Finally and typically for publications of Timber Press, a fine index makes the book easy to use over and over.

There are less expensive books about planting combinations, but no book that I know of that offers broader and deeper information to help gardeners find their own beautiful planting harmonies. One good thing about this book's price point is that you can be virtually assured that few novice gardeners own it; thus, it would be an excellent and much appreciated gift.