Theme Gardens [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Barbara Damrosch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 1982

Illustrated by Karl Stuecklen. A lush album of landscape plans for more than 300 flowers and plants, chosen for a wide variety of locales and soils. Selection of the Rodale and Garden book clubs. 104,000 copies in print. A Regina Ryan Book

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

BARBARA DAMROSCH DELIVERS THE GOODS. (Chicago Tribune)

Praise for Barbara Damrosch and the first edition of THEME GARDENS:

"Barbara Damrosch writes like she's talking to you in your garden." (Paul Frese, founding editor of Popular Garden)

"Practical and inspirational. THEME GARDENS is the kind of book you will want to read from cover to cover some winter's weekend, then return to for reference." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

"There are some bewitching fancies here." (Horticulture)

"Welcome inspiration for all who would garden imaginatively. The author makes abundantly clear how to achieve delightful gardens of distinctive character." (T.H. Everett, Senior Horticultural Specialist, The New York Botanical Garden)

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Barbara Damrosch is one of the nation's most respected garden experts and writers. She is also the author of Theme Gardens, and writes a weekly column for The Washington Post called "A Cook’s Garden." She appeared as a regular correspondent on the PBS series The Victory Garden, and co-hosted the series Gardening Naturally for The Learning Channel. She is the co-owner, with her husband, Eliot Coleman, of Four Season Farm, an experimental market garden in Harborside, Maine, that is a nationally recognized model of small-scale sustainable agriculture.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company; illustrated edition edition (January 11, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0894802178
• ISBN-13: 978-0894802171
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,598,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even a novice can have a beautiful garden, May 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Theme Gardens (Paperback)

This book has become my dear companion over the past 12 years. The plans are beautiful and they have worked well for me, but the general information, and capsules on specific plants CONTINUE to teach me. Each plan is shown in three views, for color and growth covering spring, summer, and fall. As I contemplate my new Cape Cod location, and my mother's shady retreat in Ohio, I draw out my own plans this way now. My husband bought me Theme Gardens in 1988, and it has helped me grow from a complete novice in California to a skilled amateur in New Jersey, especially with perennials. I planted the Secret Garden, and every spring I think, that Barbara Damrosch really made this great! I am buying a copy for my mother, a hesitant gardener, and together we will plant another.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars More different themes, please, April 2, 2007

By 

S. Radler (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Theme Gardens: Revised Edition (Paperback)

My 1982 edition of "Theme Gardens" is well-worn, dirt-spattered, and much loved. When I saw a revised edition, I was thrilled, hoping it would illustrate another dozen or so themes. Unfortunately, very little has changed from the first edition; most of the changes I found were in the photos while the text is almost the same, as are all the theme gardens themselves. If Ms. Damrosch writes another book that shows us new themes, I'll buy it, but until then my trusty book from '82 is just fine.

Suggestions for themes:

A Songbird Garden

An Elizabethan Herb Garden

A Reader's Garden

A Dyer's Garden

A Red, White, and Blue Garden

A Biblical Garden

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great idea book, jump starts the planning., January 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Theme Gardens (Paperback)

If you just want it done for you this is the book. Garden plans, seasonal views, and good lists of plants. You could make a lot of mistakes in designing your own 1st garden, but this takes a lot of the guess work out of your gardening.

Start with this book as a jump start, in the following years you'll get the hang of it. Good basically for zone 4-9, plus/minus 1.