Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping [Hardcover]

Rita Buchanan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2000 | Series: Taylor's Guides

Developing your landscape is one of the pleasures of owning a home. It's an opportunity to surround yourself with beauty and provide for your comfort and convenience. In a well-designed yard, kids have room to play and adults have an attractive area in which to relax and enjoy the surroundings. Your guests find a safe, welcoming path to the front door, and you don't have to struggle to bring in the groceries and take out the trash.

TAYLOR'S MASTER GUIDE TO LANDSCAPING is a stunning and useful book on a subject that even experienced gardeners find intimidating. It is essential reading if you plan to do all or most of your own landscaping work, but it's equally important if you intend to hire the work out. Buchanan's description of what to expect from landscape and gardening professionals is an eye-opener that will save a lot of disappointment and a great many dollars.

In TAYLOR'S MASTER GUIDE TO LANDSCAPING, you will learn how to - choose plants that will thrive in your climate and growing conditions - avoid common mistakes with foundation plantings - plan and plant for future growth - create an outdoor living room - design and build walks, paths, and steps - create privacy with fences, walls, and hedges.

Separate chapters explain how to care for landscape plants -- trees, shrubs, vines, lawns, groundcovers, and perennials.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Comprehensive and easy to follow, Buchanan's companion volume to Taylor's Master Guide to Gardening covers just about all the features that can be included in home landscapes--from lawns and foundation plantings to fences, driveways, bridges, steps, outdoor rooms, pools and outdoor lighting. Buchanan encourages homeowners to think carefully about the specific requirements of the site (topography, shape of the lot, size of the budget, etc.) before beginning a landscaping project. Then home landscapers can follow her step-by-step instructions and carry out the project on their own or use her tips on hiring professionals to do the work. Buchanan offers a wealth of practical information, from advice on seeing the overall character of a home and its setting to opinions about details, such as which materials are best for paths and walkways. There are also suggestions for choosing and caring for trees, shrubs, vines, ground cover and perennials, with lists of plants appropriate for individual situations. An interesting aspect of the book is the author's emphasis on seeing the home landscape in relationship to the surrounding neighborhood and the community as a whole; there are hints, for example, on how to counteract the antisocial impression made by a wall or a fence erected in front of a house. Buchanan's clearly written, abundantly illustrated guide should go a long way toward helping amateurs have the courage to tackle what often seems a daunting task. 425 color photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Since the median age of the American home is 30 years, many home landscapes need updating. Von Trapp (Landscaping from the Ground Up), a professional landscape designer and horticulturist, was prompted by her experiences in revitalizing her own home's aging landscape to write a book guiding homeowners step by step through a landscape makeover. Helpful checklists are included for both the planning and execution phases. Beautiful color photos and black-and-white line drawings, along with clear directions for do-it-yourself projects, make this a practical guide for bringing new life to a past-mature yard. Buchanan, a botanist, horticulturist, author of more than 20 books, and contributor to Country Living Gardener, also uses her own home as a showcase for her work. Unlike von Trapp, who focuses on rejuvenating older landscapes and solving common home landscaping problems, Buchanan offers a comprehensive treatment of landscape design, emphasizing designing with plants and including extensive information about choosing and caring for plants, trees, shrubs, vines, and ground covers. Her book, a companion volume to Taylor's Master Guide to Gardening (Houghton, 1994), is a landmark work destined to become a classic. The text is authoritative, but both the language and the examples are down-to-earth. Color photographs, line drawings, plant lists for special purposes, and checklists for projects such as making and using compost enhance this title. Practical yet challenging, both titles will help homeowners to improve their outdoor living environment, add value to their homes, and increase their pleasure in their yards. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
-Nancy Myers, Univ. of South Dakota Lib., Vermillion
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1ST edition (April 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618055908
• ISBN-13: 978-0618055906
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #194,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

79 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding overview, April 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping (Hardcover)

This book is an outstanding overview of landscape design. The book is divided into small, easily readable segments discussing every aspect of design including evaluating your site, hardscape, and plant selection and care. This is not a how-to book; readers interested in this would be happier with any book by Sara Jane von Trapp. Instead, Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping paints the execution of garden design in broad strokes. There is an emphasis on working with your individual property, and the book provides you with the knowledge needed to determine what will work in your yard (and what will not). A lot of information is contained in well-organized, cohisive prose. The photographs are beautiful and appropriate to the subject matter being discussed. I found this book very difficult to put down, although it is organized in such a way that it would be easy to digest in small portions (as well as refer back to later). In conclusion, no gardening fan should be without this book.

76 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and well designed; sometimes too opinionated, November 12, 2000

By 

Dan Hooper - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping (Hardcover)

The book is what its title says and that's good - a master guide to landscaping. While I respect Ms. Buchanan's opinions on matters of landscaping since she obviously is versed enough to complete this well done and comprehensive book, it seems to me that her opinions sometimes get in the way of common, useful, tried and true landscaping practices. Example: On page 229 she adamantly states, "...Disregard anyone who tells you to set hedge plants in a zigzag pattern...", yet the picture above depicts just that and, quite frankly, it's commonly recommended to do so. As a designer, I do use that technique for hedge planting because it creates a billowy effect and it's more visually interesting, in many instances. The point is, that statement is an opinion that may not be based on anything more than personal taste.

Having said that, it's an excellent and in-depth guide to the extensive field of landscaping and a very good book just to see what her educated opinions might be. Keep an open mind and refer also to other more task-specific books and expertise when faced with landscape challenges. This book certainly will entertain one with its views, many of them interesting and useful.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Decisions, decisions, May 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping (Hardcover)

This landscaping guide truly is a book about decisions, and we all know how hard decisions are to make. Author Rita Buchanan recognizes that drawing up a landscape design means making many decisions at one time, and that may be too much for some people. She gives several ways to visualize a planting, including a three-dimensional mock-up with garden tools and string or hose. She steps you through different types of paths and edgings, walls and fences and bridges. She devotes a large portion of the book to plant care. This section could stand on its own as a plant care guide.