Customer Reviews

The Perennial Garden: Color Harmonies Through the Seasons

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This book has a lot of useful things to say about color and garden design. Some of the color theories presented are flaky and esoteric (such as detailed color-emotion link tables, and matching hues to musical notes and making a literal "color harmony"), but the reader is free to learn and choose from many color and design theories. Since garden design is a subjective art, I can reject the need to use, say, the "golden section" in a given design, yet believe that it's a good idea to consciously consider it.

The book also has about 150 pages of information on specific perennials, by genus, and chapters on matters such as building up soil, and building paths - wasted pages if you already have a good basic library. For me, the book's best feature is its 80 well-annotated color plates, arranged by season, showing either a medium close-up of 2 or 3 plants or a broader landscape view. It always inspires and humbles me.

This book has been really helpful especially giving information regarding color schemes in monocrome with different blooming cycles . A must for gardners!

I love this book, but my favorite section deals with soil amendment, and describes double digging in some detail. It took a long time and a lot of work, but I finally got my garden's soil to the point where, as the authors describe, I could literally shove my clenched fist into it.