Customer Reviews

Visions of Roses

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Anyone who has seen Vivienne Russell's book on Monet's Garden knows that this photographer is capable of capturing the spirit of a garden - the way it looks and feels. She has an eye for light, detail, nuance, composition. So when I ordered this book, I was expecting to be equally wowed. But I wasn't.

Much of this is because Monet's Garden at Giverny is in a class by itself. It is, perhaps, less a garden than a living, breathing three dimensional piece of art. I know as a photographer that when I photograph a garden, it is usually the case that I must move through the garden judiciously and figure out exactly where to stand and what to look at if I am to capture it at its best. But at Giverney the opposite is true. Stand in any spot and look in any direction and you will find a perfect shot. This explains much of the gap.

Yet I know the discrepancy is more than this, because one can find photos with noticable photographic flaws in this book - mostly blown highlights. So part of the blame lies in the photography. That said, the photos are generally first rate and they are blown up large and reproduced well, all this giving us a better view of rose garden vistas than we can get anywhere else.

In delivering these vistas it fills a niche that few books attempt. And it does so very well. It describes how to build gardens with roses; how to use them in all sorts of ways other than lining them up like so many wooden soldiers on a review field.

In some ways I prefer Tony Lord's Designing with Roses. It is more about the language of design expressed in rose language. And its photos are more colorful. But to see real gardens and to hear them being discussed by their owners and one of the best rose authorities writing today is a great and rare asset. There is no other book that tries to do this. And this one does it very well.

This is a visually stunning tour of rose gardens throughout Europe and the United States. Beales interviewed the owners and describes their gardens in glorious detail. The photographs by Russell are equally beautiful. This is a beautiful book that gardeners and rose lovers will love to have in their library.

Most of the photos are not of the "garden", but only the plants, plus a lot of the pics are not sunny enough to be pleasing. There are only a few worthy interesting "garden" scenes. The book's inside flap's description, therefore, was too misleading.

This is one of the most beautiful garden books I have, and hands down my favorite. Wandering through its pages refreshes the soul and is the best antidote for stress I know. These thirty gardens run the gamut from the almost wild to the clipped not-a-blade-of-grass-out-of-place and are all enchanting.

The gardeners' descriptions and gardening philosophies are interesting to read along with Mr. Beale's comments, and non-guilt inducing (always a plus in a garden book), but the photographs are what make me keep this book by my reading chair. I'd swear you can hear the bees and smell the air!

Give this book to your favorite gardener.