Outdoor Living: Designing a Garden for Relaxation, Entertaining and Play [Hardcover]

Richard Key (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2000 | Series: Conran Value Editions

"The enjoyable aspects of outdoor life--taking it easy, entertaining guests, and various forms of play--occupy Key's imagination...focuses considerable attention on planning and plotting, offering practical advice in an inviting writing style aimed at helping readers make appropriate choices for a wide array of outdoor situations. Sidebars highlight special tips, from counsel on safety issues to recommended plantings and special care with water features. Urban rooftop terraces and a country retreat complete with a grand children's playhouse are but two of the examples shown in lovely color photographs."--Booklist.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Gardens are great for growing beautiful flowers and tasty herbs, but they're also ideal places for entertaining, dining, relaxing, sunbathing, meditating, and playing. In fact, with the right planning, gardens can function much like outdoor rooms that the whole family can enjoy. Richard Key's Outdoor Living shows readers how to maximize their enjoyment of the outdoor spaces they have.

Key's approach is practical, as well as quite thorough, focusing on how readers can work within physical and financial limitations, while at the same time creating spaces that reflect their own personal style and individuality. Beginning with a chapter on "Designing for Outdoor Living," Key walks the reader through figuring out what elements they want in their gardens--from features and furniture to storage space for toys and gardening supplies--and how to fit it all into the space they have. He covers the nitty-gritty of designing a garden, including how to maximize space in a small garden, find a qualified garden designer, avoid common hazards, and much more. In subsequent chapters on "Relaxation," "Entertaining," and "Play," he offers advice for designing a quiet space for escape, an outdoor extension of the living-room ideal for entertaining guests, and areas where children can run about and play freely. From urban rooftop terraces to quaint suburban patios and sprawling country retreats, Key offers readers ideas and inspiration for designing gardens to fit any lifestyle, living situation, budget, and sense of style.

Frequent sidebars on topics such as "Garden Safety" and "Encouraging Learning in the Garden" offer useful tips for the do-it-yourself garden designer. Real-life examples show how people have solved a myriad of common garden dilemmas--from how to make the most of a tiny city backyard to how to plant around an arbor so that it blends into the garden. Full-color photographs throughout illustrate the book's concepts and provide plenty of inspiration. --Robin Donovan

From Booklist

The enjoyable aspects of outdoor life--taking it easy, entertaining guests, and various forms of play--occupy Key's imagination when it comes to garden design. He focuses considerable attention on planning and plotting, offering practical advice in an inviting writing style aimed at helping readers make appropriate choices for a wide array of outdoor situations. Sidebars highlight special tips, from counsel on safety issues to recommended plantings and special care with water features. Urban rooftop terraces and a country retreat complete with a grand children's playhouse are but two of the examples shown in lovely color photographs. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Conran (August 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1840910941
• ISBN-13: 978-1840910940
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,549,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of pretty pictures, not a lot of practical advice, May 25, 2003

By 

Stephen Cords (Brockton, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Outdoor Living: Designing a Garden for Relaxation, Entertaining and Play (Hardcover)

Well, that may not be entirely true. There is a lot of advice here if you have a palatial estate and want to know what to tell the contrator you like. Those of us with modest homes looking to do the work ourselves would be better served by other books.

There are some interesting ideas here and the photography is absolutely stunning. People who have no idea what they want to do on their property will come away from this volume with at least some inspiration and I have to admit that seeing it has made me want more land around my home to play with on the weekends. Someday I'll have use for this book, but right now it's sitting on a coffee table and not getting dirty in the back yard with me.