Customer Reviews

Japanese Touch for Your Garden

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This slender book packs a big punch. It has been a how-to Japanese gardening classic for many years, and is a fine place to start. Long on good photography, not wordy, but gets right to the design philosophy behind the gardens. Especially well geared for those without a lot of space to work with. I only wish it were bigger! If you find yourself looking for more at this end of this book, may I recommend 'Japanese Gardens: Right Angle and Natural Form' by Gunter Nitschke (1993, Benedikt Taschen) for more on fabulous pictures, history and design theories.

Not a coffee table glamour book, not a glossed-over editorial toss-off destined for the remainder bin. This is quite simply the best guidebook for the amateur of the Japanese garden who wishes to try out the concepts at home.

It can be very frustrating to take home some fancy book on Zen gardens, only to find that it contains no real help for creating one. This book's real, step-by-step, practical advice is what anyone is after. It does not pretend to be the end-all of the art, & rather it admits this right from the title (A Japanese TOUCH...) This book will get you the right LOOK.

I found especially useful the diagrams of how to get balance (especially through rocks) within a space. There are some very good illustrations of bamboo fencing, too. Botanical suggestions and lists of suppliers are also helpful, but these lists are not exhaustive. You can achieve the basic framework with this book, though. I have yet to find a better Japanese gardening book... room for improvement is in expanding the above lists and adding practical suggestions for more ambitious, larger landscaping. But this will get you the basics.

Bonus delight is the first entry, a mood-setting piece on one man's contemplation of mountains and forests... all to be found in his tiny Japanese garden.

Grab a copy and use it and love your results!

Using this book and lots of my time I took a boring townhouse courtyard and turned it into a mini Japanese garden of peace and tranquility. My results were so promising I expanded to the front yard and outside the courtyard fence. The book's beautiful pictures and down to earth language gave me the confidence to select and place my plants, rocks, lanterns and install a water basin plus lights for nighttime enjoyment. I'm still using the book's ideas as I build and install a wooden lattice around the garden's perimeter. (This will resemble growing bamboo, which is too large for my space) Yes you can hire someone to do your Japanese garden but why do it and miss all the trial and error that makes creating you own garden so enjoyable. Take this book home and get started. You will not go wrong.

The title of this book is a bit misleading, in that it does not offer tips on adding a "Japanese touch" to your existing garden, but rather goes about explaining how to create a Japanese-style garden in the space available to you. In this manner, it is an extremely capable guide and leaves you with the confidence that you can accomplish building your own Japanese-style garden.

"A Japanese Touch for Your Garden" tells both the basic elements of a Japanese garden; rocks, plants, water, artificial elements, and also provides a blueprint for laying out and constructing a garden using these elements. Although packed with lovely pictures, the book is straight-forward and bare-boned, giving you the essentials of what you need. The authors briefly touches upon garden philosophy and such, but acknowledges that there are other, thicker books for the esoteric matters and they will focus on the practical.

The different sections of the book deal with things such as stone lanterns, bamboo fences, bridges, plants and trees...basically everything you will need. The focus is one how to select and use these available elements for the existing space you have to work with, and how to maximize them for the effect you want to achieve. The rear of the book also contains a guide of Japanese gardens in the US that you can visit, and suppliers of the various items you may want for your garden.

An excellent book, it is exactly what you need if there is a spare portion of your house or yard where you would like to put a Japanese garden. For a more deeper, spiritual look at Japanese gardens, look elsewhere. But to be inspired and begin construction on your own "World in Miniature," this is the place to start.

This book highlights the key elements of Japanese gardening. It provides some theory into the Japanese style. Quality photos and sketches provide the reader with specific examples of the Japanese style in context. A good coffee table book with quality photos and an inspirational read (all but too brief).

This is a wonderful book about japanese gardens. It is derived from a classic japanese encyclopedia of garden making. It explains concepts of japanese gardening and gives practical information about making a japanese garden. I especially enjoyed the section on bamboo fences, with photographs and instructions on how to construct them.

I had looked everywhere for a book that would describe Japanese fences and how to tie them. This book describes how to build 14 or so fences in good detail with drawings to help. It also taught me to tie the knots required for the fencing. Gates are also discussed along with stone placement and plantings. It's a book I truly appreciate.

This book shows how to use essential elements such as rocks, plants, laterns, and boulders etc., within a space. The diagrams in the book illustrated how to use those elements to balance and compensate each other and make your garden looks much bigger and more appealing to the viewers.

A great book to read before you start your weekend garden project. This book will give you inspiration and give your spirit alift. I built my Japanese Rock Garden after reading this book and other book that I bought "Ortho's All About Creating Japanese Gardens". A great garden will add value to your home so did my garden -- a friend of mine who is a realestate appraiser told me that I must added about $30,000 to my property although I spent only about $5000 on the materials.

Highly recommanded for anyone who are interested about Japanese Garden or do it youself gardener!!!!!

This book is a great source of information for those who either want to build (or design) a Japanese garden, or if they just want to know about the basic principles of Japanese garden design. The easy-to-understand explanations are supported by good photography and sketches. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that is entertaining the idea of building a Japanese garden. With the help of this book (and few others)I managed to build my own Japanese garden, on a roof, which was about 30 feet long by 25 feet wide.

this book is a good accompanyment to other Japanese gardening books. Definitely not to decorate a coffee table, but to practically show one options (various bridges, paths, fencing, ponds, etc) that one can incorporate into their garden for a japanese feel. I especially liked the detailed garden sketch at the end of the book showing an example of what to plant where. I would have assumed much fewer plants from the pictures than what the author sketched in. This will come in extremely helpfully come planting time!