The New Traditional Garden : A Practical Guide to Creating and Restoring Authentic American Gardens for Homes of All Ages [Hardcover]

Michael Weishan (Author), Seth Godin Productions (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 1999

The unique combination of utility and beauty that has been the glory of the American garden for the past three hundred years is once again blooming, as home owners rediscover the magic of individual, homemade, horticultural splendor. Yes, the golden age of gardening is dawning, and much of the current enthusiasm for creating distinctive, unforgettable designs was spurred by nationally respected landscape architect and horticulturist Michael Weishan. His impeccable taste, common sense, and comprehensive knowledge of America's gardening history make him the ideal advisor for today's gardeners.

Respectful of the past and mindful of contemporary needs and lifestyles, Weishan lays down the underlying principles for creating--either from scratch or from the ghost of a lost garden--a domestic landscape with purpose and personality. He explains with utmost clarity how to

- Discover exactly which type and style of garden is right for you
- Analyze the archaeology of your old garden and recreate it from the past
- Arrange walls and fences for beauty and privacy
- Transform front, side, and back yards into one harmonious environment
- Lay out graceful walks and drives; rescue an orphaned front door
- Master the disciplined symmetry of a formal garden, the exuberance of a Victorian yard, or the charming randomness of a cottage garden
- Establish a mini-orchard featuring delicious rediscovered varieties of apples, peaches, cherries, and other fruits and berries

Lavishly designed with more than two hundred illustrations, The New Traditional Garden also includes a compendium of historic plants, detailed plans for great antique gardens, a directory of the most beautiful historic gardens in America, a comprehensive list of garden suppliers, and hundreds of other features to help you create a garden with elegance and character.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Author Michael Weishan is an expert in recreating gardens of early America; his mission is to resurrect the styles of the 18th and 19th century, when settlers in the New World were trying to distinguish their landscapes from the British style so beloved by gardeners today. This book is particularly targeted toward owners of Colonial- or Victorian-style homes, and the narration has a bit of a highbrow New England feel to it in lines like, "our founding fathers, men so dedicated to a controlled system of checks and balances that they fought and won a war to establish their principles, built gardens imbued with the same spirit." Weishan emphasizes "order and balance," and he wishes the '50s had never happened, with those boring perfect lawns and hardware-store perennials.

Throughout The New Traditional Garden there are evocative passages about locating the "ghosts" within the garden: covered-over plantings, perennials that have reappeared each spring for decades. "Be on the lookout for something old in the garden," Weishan writes. "You never know when it may teach you something new." For gardeners who find that working the soil is a nostalgic process that's as much about uncovering the past as creating a future, this is an expert guide. It includes an exhaustive historic plant list, dating the introduction of various species back to the 1700s. Weishan's ultimate goal is to remind us of early American attitudes of "stewardship," wherein we see ourselves as tenants of the land, caretakers, not tyrannical owners who must make our mark at any cost. --Emily White

From Publishers Weekly

Weishan, horticulturist and publisher of Traditional Gardening magazine, presents a compendium that will appeal to a range of gardening passions. In the first chapter, he explains the 300-year history of American gardening, from its utilitarian colonial beginnings to the elaborate gardens created during the booming economy at the end of the 19th century. And it is this historical background that can inform readers faced with restoring old properties to historical correctness. Chapters are arranged by principle: Order and Balance; Cohesion; Details; Practicality; Beauty; Productivity; and Stewardship. Very little escapes Weishan's scope: suburban plot plans, visits to several historic gardens, how-tos, topiary, the delights of rhubarb or of a flowering mead, make-overs of driveway entries, lists of vines that twist or hold, a clear dissection of the rose family, unabashed commentary on the mania of "unblemished lawns" and the curse of overgrown foundation plants. Whether impatiently scolding ("You simply can't buy that luscious patina of age"), encouraging concern for the shared landscape, or lamenting the postwar decline of aesthetics and the reduction of gardening to "lawn and mulch," Weishan's historic lens will sharpen the vision of any gardener. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (September 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345420411
• ISBN-13: 978-0345420411
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,037,620 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An informative and inspiring look at gardening and gardens., October 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The New Traditional Garden : A Practical Guide to Creating and Restoring Authentic American Gardens for Homes of All Ages (Hardcover)

I picked up a copy of The New Traditional Garden and was delighfully surprised. Instead of a typical modern gardening book with the same old options of plants and landscaping styles, Michael Weishan explores gardening within an historical context which gives the reader a new perspective on what a garden could and should be. Being a child of the 50's I had never considered what the gardens of our forefathers and mothers had meant to them, nor had I understood the value of taking the environment of the garden into account, including the structures on the property, and creating a unified, holistic, and rich presentation. I especially enjoyed the examples of what not to do (and found I had done quite of few of those!) I also found that it was hard to read the book for any length of time without becoming so inspired that I wanted to get out the gardening tools and set to work immediately. Thank you Mr. Weishan for shedding a whole new light on gardening and gardens!

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excelent summary of the "how toos" of creating a garden ., September 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The New Traditional Garden : A Practical Guide to Creating and Restoring Authentic American Gardens for Homes of All Ages (Hardcover)

Finally we have a difinitive work on the traditional American garden. This book returns to the beauty and practicality of the early American garden and tells you how to create it. While you get the information on all the aspects that go into this creation you are not overloaded with a lot of unnecessary planting instructions. I was very impressed with the great multitude of pictures and references and the vast amount of knowledge they contained. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to the new and the old gardener and to anyone that has an interest in things that grow for both food and beauty.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A different kind of gardening book, July 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The New Traditional Garden : A Practical Guide to Creating and Restoring Authentic American Gardens for Homes of All Ages (Hardcover)

The New Traditional Garden is unlike most books in my garden library. It begins with a wonderful history of gardening for the first settlers and includes much garden history. The book is enjoyable and inspiring as suggested by the other reviewers. But I also found it to be a bit disorganized in its attempt to present a different side of gardening. For example, each chapter includes a subject such a Unity, or Practicality with some interesting discourse relating yesterday's gardens and lifestyle to today's. There is a Historic garden featured, certain plant culture is discussed and a How-to and perhaps a driveway makeover etc. are thrown in for good measure. I would rather have seen more flow to the book's organization, but the author is a publisher of a magazine and perhaps this format, back and forth between subjects, keeps a reader interested. Also I understand the author's viewpoints in the chapter on Stewardship. What better place to state your opinions and call others to take political action than in your own book? But this is not something that I look for in a guide to traditional gardening. As with every gardening book that I have, there are favorite sections which I refer to again and again, and other sections which are of no use to me. Overall, this book is different and takes a "new" look at the "old" things of gardening. It has earned a spot on my crowded book shelf. I especially plan to refer to the extensive Historic plant compendium when I expand my garden (again) this fall.