Customer Reviews

Theme Gardens

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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

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.

For those who want step by step instruction in laying out a particular kind of garden...this book can be most helpful. Various types of gardens are included & plant lists are provided ...some history on each particular garden is also added in some cases.

Writer's style is very approachable & easy to understand...no high & lofty botanical terms to look up in the dictionary.

Author carefully explains various aspects of developing the projects in some cases such as how to build raised beds, prepare soil & building a trellis etc. These additions are there to supplement the ideas put forward by the author in a very effective manner.

I recommend this book on the premise of it's intended purpose...to help people looking to establish a few particular kinds of gardens & suggested layouts. With respect to it's purpose the objective has been met.

I am not an experienced gardener, and this book showed me what plants to put together to create a look. I also picked up some general principles on gardening, and there were good how-tos for things like creating walkway, etc.

This book, with its gorgeous illustrations, is simply magical. On snowy days, I look at the garden plans and dream. I bought my original copy of Theme Gardens in 1982, but I loved it so much, I was constantly lending it out and then worrying about getting it back. Now that the new edition is out, I've ordered several copies to give as gifts and one to keep. I'll never part with my "lovingly-worn" original, however.

Don't waste your time or money. What she wrote in the First Theme Gardens is enough. If you can't find the first one then this is a good book, but as a REVISED and UPDATED Edition the changes were very subtle.

Zen of Watering Your GardenEvery garden has, to my way of thinking a theme--no matter how large -no matter how small. This book meticulously helps the reader to pursue different common garden themes. It does this well.
But gardens are personal and circumstances may greatly limit one's ability to execute an elaborate garden. There are many other opportunities to inspire a gardener.
Matt Cohen