Customer Reviews

Home Landscaping: Northwest Region

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had low expectations for this when I ordered it. I figured it would be one of those overly general "how to" books that leave out much of the important information. I was surprised to find that it has very specific plans for a variety of garden situations, plans which already show specific groupings of specific plants.

I found this very helpful because I'm not particularly experienced in designing a landscape, nor am I wealthy enough to afford a landscape designer. There is a design for every corner of my new house, tailored to sunlight, etc. I can follow the plans verbatim and end up with a landscape that looks like it was professionally designed, or I can make small changes to personalize it. This is, as the previous reviewer commented, much easier than starting from scratch.

Definately worth the money.

This book has colorful drawings suggesting gardens [to scale] for all kinds of settings - shade, sun, slopes, corners, and narrow strips, as well as color photos of the plants and suggested varieties of specific species.
Included are directions for supporting structures such as paths and trellises, general plant care, and soil preparation.
It's a thorough book with lots of ideas in an attractive format.

My Mom was a master gardener, and I grew up in a wonderfully landscaped home. However, once I bought my own home I found that gardening talent was not genetic, it was earned. So I bought a ton of books related to Northwest gardening, and read each one diligently. I put into pratice Home Landscaping because is was extraordinarily practical and straightforward, the rest tend to be coffee table books. Conceptually, this is just a fantastic book, and while it puts out "bulletproof" gardening plans with specific plants and locations, the concepts of what goes where and why are the most useful. Experimentation is great, but with the concepts used, it's just a little less painful.

This book would be awesome except for the fact that it really only details the type of plants one would be able to use in Western Washington State. Most of the plants suggested in this book just aren't hardy enough for the rest of the northwest. I still found some great suggestions in it, though.

THE BACKGROUND: I know next to nothing about plants, and what little I do know is mainly for plants that grow well in the Deep South, where I grew up. I now have a cute house with a remarkably boring yard 2500 miles away from the "Deep South" - in Seattle, to be exact.

THE GOAL: create some nice-looking, *low maintenance* landscaping for the yard, but without having to become an avid amateur gardener, carpenter or landscape designer.

THE TECHNIQUE: as is my style, I go in for complete overkill and immediately buy a dozen books on the subject of landscaping and gardening - must be thorough in my research, you understand. I pour through them, make lists, check with local nurseries, draw detailed plans, etc., and after many hours of work and decision-making, finally decide what to buy and where to plant them.

THE RESULT: 90% of the plants I finally choose as appropriate to the area, low maintenance, and nifty looking, are in this ONE BOOK already, and there were plenty of others in this one book that could have substituted for the remaining 10%. My planting layouts also fairly strongly resemble several of the suggested layouts detailed in this book.

THE LESSON: Should have started and stopped with this one. I coulda fit in tuba lessons or something!

Buy this book, Cascadia gardeners and landscapers! It's what you need! Oh, and it also has tons of useful information on creating walls, fences, gates, paths, garden layouts, pruning, planting, etc.

VERY highly recommended.