Reflecting Nature : Garden Designs for Wild Landscapes

Library Journal

The current horticultural trend of "naturalistic gardening" involves mimicking natural and wild areas and paying more attention to native plants. Two new books, offering two different approaches, explore this technique. In Reflecting Nature, the Malitzes (father and son) describe natural areas and discuss how these landscapes can be duplicated in the home garden. Most of their examples come from state parks in New England and Colorado, where they have photographed beautiful samples of nature's artwork, from waterfalls and other water features to meadows and forests. Although the descriptive prose is a pleasure to read and will be enjoyed by nature lovers, gardeners may be dissatisfied by the lack of practical advice and garden illustrations. Unfortunately, many of the examples here would be quite difficult to accomplish in many gardening situations. For larger collections. Lovejoy's Naturalistic Gardening may be more helpful for those who plan on applying these ideas to their own garden. Lovejoy's illustrations come from real gardens, and the full-color photographs should inspire anyone. Beginning with chapters on gardening in layers (a phenomenon occurring in nature) and plant placement, she progresses to individual naturalistic styles such as stroll gardens, city and suburb gardens, and tropical gardens. The only drawback to this exciting book is a distinct bias toward Northwest gardening. Still, Lovejoy's ideas about style and naturalistic design could apply to any garden. Recommended for most gardening collections.--Phillip Oliver, Univ. of North Alabama Lib., Florence

Booknews

A photo essay exploring natural landscapes across the country and showing how they can be echoed in smaller garden settings, demonstrating that following nature's example leads to garden compositions that satisfy the mind and the eye. Of particular interest is examination of ten different American gardens designed in a Japanese style. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Internet Book Watch

In Reflecting Nature: Garden Designs From Wild Landscapes, Jerome and Seth Malitz successfully collaborate to provide the reader with a detailed and informative examination of wilderness landscapes throughout North America, and how they provide professional and amateur gardeners with manifold ideas for their own gardening and landscaping activities. This superb book unveils seven sources of ideas for natural gardening: nature's architecture; tenacious alpine rock gardens and forests; wetlands, drylands, meadows and grasslands; water features; small groves with the look and feel of forests; small and diverse features which depth and character to the garden; and Japanese-style gardens representing centuries of nature gardening legacy. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Reflecting Nature is an outstanding, core title for any personal, professional, academic, or community library gardening and landscaping reference collections.
—Internet Book Watch