Shady Retreats: 20 Plans for Colorful, Private Spaces in Your Backyard [Paperback]

Barbara W. Ellis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2003

Most flowers and vegetables love the sun, but the gardeners who tend them crave the shade. A comfortable hammock strung between two trees. A set of Adirondack chairs arranged for conversation beneath a vine-covered arbor. A stone bench tucked into a quiet nook. These out-of-the-way outdoor retreats provide busy gardeners with cool relief from the hot sun, as well as precious hours of quiet, privacy, and peace.

In SHADY RETREATS, lifelong gardener Barbara W. Ellis provides detailed plans for 20 gardens with shade as the theme. Each design includes easy-to-read blueprints and a glorious oil painting of what the garden will look like. Ellis also provides specific plant lists; suggestions on how to bring color into the shade; and practical advice on how to use shrubs, trees, vines, and man-made structures to create attractive, inviting, shady sanctuaries in any garden or yard.

The garden design concepts are easy for even novices to grasp, and experienced gardeners will appreciate the unique inspirations and down-to-earth advice on how to adapt the concept of the shady retreat to fit their own garden's configuration.

Complete with suggestions on how to use gazebos, containers, fountains, and other garden ornaments, plus an encyclopedia of approximately 100 shade-loving plants, Shady Retreats is an easy-to-use handbook that helps even beginning gardeners make the move out of the house and into a cool, inviting outdoor sanctuary.<

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

An intimate sanctuary shaded from the heat of the sun--Ellis believes every garden should have just such an inviting space, and points the way to creating one regardless of the attributes, or unfavorable conditions, of an existing yard. Whether starting with a blank slate or introducing a renovated area within a maturing garden, Ellis' guide addresses budgets great and small, as well as landscapes ranging from expansive properties to petite lots. In all, 20 garden plans suggest intriguing possibilities, from bringing in a formidable hardscape element such as a gazebo and surrounding it with greenery to inserting a small terrace under existing trees and enhancing it with container plantings. A congenial writing style provides plenty of encouragement, while a final section describes an array of tender specimens, perennials, trees, and shrubs to handsomely furnish the new space. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“This is the book you’ll turn to after accepting that your garden has lots of shade … Accept the shady deal and learn to love the cool green.” — Seattle Post-Intelligencer

 

“If you’ve got a shady yard — or you want a shady yard — this is the book for you. Shady Retreats … provides step-by-step advice for creating everything from a shade nook to an entire garden.” — Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

 

“ … a wonderfully written paperback … gives step-by-step instructions and detailed illustrations on how to create delightful retreats in the shade.” — The Indianapolis Star

 

“In all, 20 garden plans suggest intriguing possibilities … A congenial writing style provides plenty of encouragement.” — Booklist

 

“[G]arden expert Barbara Ellis’ book of outdoor designs has something for everyone.” — Tulsa World

 

Also featured in Detroit News and Free Press, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Nashville Tennessean, The Morning Call, Oklahoman, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Riverside, CA, Press-Enterprise, CNNMoney online, www.gardenerspath.com,

 

 

“If you’ve got a shady yard – or you want a shady yard – this is the book for you.” – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (April 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580174728
• ISBN-13: 978-1580174725
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #506,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A reward book for gardeners, September 6, 2003

By 

Valerie Adolph "Coast Journal" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shady Retreats: 20 Plans for Colorful, Private Spaces in Your Backyard (Paperback)

Reward yourself for gardening. Most of the gardeners I know love to get their hands in the dirt and work at whatever it takes to make their garden beautiful. But there comes a time to sit back, either alone or with friends and family, and just enjoy what you have created. This book gives you plans for twenty shady retreats where you can sit back, relax and just enjoy.

Each of the 20 retreats is shown in a painting by Gary Palmer (the idea of a painting rather than a photograph is a novel approach and it worked well with this topic) and a detailed design layout is provided too. I would have found it helpful if more construction details were included, but this is an idea book rather than a how-to book.

The strength of this book lies in the recurring themes such "Colour in the Shade" and "Ideas for Great Design" that enrich each of the major designs. There are also ideas of plants to selct for each and a goodly list of favourite shade plants at the end of the book.

The illustrations throughout the book are right on target with the theme and illustrate ways to incorporate your own requirements - peace? an active area? a working space? entertaining? - into a design for a shady retreat.

Definitely a reward book. Every gardener deserves a shady retreat like these.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Choices, choices, choices, July 17, 2006

By 

Mary Chappell (OKlahoma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Shady Retreats: 20 Plans for Colorful, Private Spaces in Your Backyard (Paperback)

I LOVE this book! So many designs to choose from. Great buy, gorgeous pictures.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get away from it all!!, June 13, 2007

By 

Kathleen L. French "Bookworm" (Chicago, Il., USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shady Retreats: 20 Plans for Colorful, Private Spaces in Your Backyard (Paperback)

Very good book to inspire you to find a "retreat" in your own backyard to rest, read, or just dream. The pictures and ideas are very inviting. Great book to add to my collection.