Private Gardens of Santa Barbara

Private Gardens of Santa Barbara

Author: Margie Grace

Publisher: Gibbs Smith

Published: 2020-06-16

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1423654153

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An exclusive look at the exquisite residential gardens of the American Riviera. Private Gardens of Santa Barbara is an invitation into eighteen distinctive private, and beautiful gardens; large estates, modest homes, and surf retreats run the gamut from sublime and naturalistic to bold and urban. What they have in common, however, is what makes them truly inspiring. Showcased through 190 stunning images in more than 250 pages in this elegant coffee table book format, each beautiful landscape represents a widely varied garden style developed in response to the unique character of each site, the architecture, and the larger environment; and adapted to the lifestyle, personality, and practical needs of the individuals and families who live there. In a career that spans over 30 years, Margie Grace, principal of Grace Design Associates, has established herself as an expert in sustainable landscape design and advocate for environmentally sensitive gardens. These gardens offer endless inspiration for sustainable home garden design, created with water-smart, maintenance-smart, and fire-smart priorities in mind, with high habitat value and plants well adapted to the Southern California climate of Santa Barbara.


Lotusland

Lotusland

Author:

Publisher: Rizzoli Publications

Published: 2022-03-15

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 084786989X

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A beautifully crafted volume on the world-renowned gardens of Lotusland—the first such book in more than two decades and the first ever magnificent tribute to this international treasure. Variously labeled Eden, one of the 100 gardens you must visit before your die, and among the 10 best botanical gardens in the world, Madame Ganna Walska’s Lotusland is magic mixed with paradise in the hills of Montecito, California. Walska, a well-known Polish opera singer and socialite, purchased the estate in 1941 and spent 43 years creating Lotusland. The collections of exotic plants on the 37-acre property are an expression of her penchant for the dramatic, the unexpected, and the whimsical. Home to more than 3,400 types of plants, including at least 35,000 specimens, it is recognized not just for the diversity of its collections, but for the extraordinary design sensibility informing the many one-of-a-kind individual gardens that comprise the whole. As pleasing as its aesthetic and sensorial qualities are, Lotusland is also an important center for scientific research and conservation. A leader in the field of sustainable practices, it is the first botanical garden in the United States to become entirely organic.


Estate Gardens of California

Estate Gardens of California

Author: Melba Levick

Publisher: Rizzoli International Publications

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

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Detailed with loving accuracy in the photography of Melba Levick and in the lucid prose of Karen Dardick, Estate Gardens of California showcases fifteen magnificent estate gardens that are uniquely, exuberantly Californian. Included within are the classically inspired, 654-acre gardens of Filoli near San Francisco, a property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation-an estate with grounds of such alluring beauty that many times the cameras of Hollywood have come here to film; the Huntington Library Gardens in San Marino, one of the most important botanical gardens in the world; and the opulent and strange but wildly popular Lotusland in Montecito, a fantasy world of exquisite beauty created by Madam Ganna Walska with famed designer Lockwood de Forest. Other gardens featured are in Pebble Beach, Newport Beach, Beverly Hills, the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, and Rancho Palos Verdes. It is the plant palette of almost endless possibilities that makes California's great gardens so breathtaking. In Estate Gardens a rare and privileged glimpse of these possibilities is given. Cohen Estate, Newport Beach (owner of Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles) Collins Estate, Beverly Hills Hacienda Mar Monte, Pebble Beach Descanso Gardens, La Canada (open to public) Filoli, Woodside (open to public) Lotusland, Montecito (open to public) Rancho Los Alamitos, Long Beach (open to public) Stathatos Estate, San Marino Beaulieu Residence, Napa Valley (private residence of owner of Beaulieu winery) Villa Fiore, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County Huntington Library, San Marino (open to public) Val Verde, Montecito (open for limited public viewing) Villa Narcissa, Rancho Palos Verdes Virginia Robinson Estate and Gardens, Beverly Hills (open for limited public viewing) Alden Estate, Santa Monica Canyon.


California Gardens

California Gardens

Author: David C. Streatfield

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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With its lush photographs and authoritative text this definitive history captures the exuberant past and dynamic present of the California garden. Ranging from the pragmatic plantings of the Spanish missions through Victorian fantasies and Hollywood extravagances and culminating in up-to-the-minute drought-tolerant gardens, California Gardens: Creating a New Eden provides a thought-provoking, eye-dazzling chronicle of the state's diverse garden traditions. Offering ideas and examples that will inspire all gardeners and garden lovers, David C. Streatfield recounts how amateurs, architects, landscape designers, and nurserymen have created the gardens of their dreams. His ground-breaking text - in preparation for over twenty years - illuminates how California's ecology, economy, and the importation of exotic plants and styles have shaped its gardens and ultimately influenced garden design around the world. The various ways that landscape architecture and architecture have intertwined in the last two centuries are explored with particular insightfulness. Some of the finest architects and landscape architects of this century - Charles and Henry Greene, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Thomas Church, Lockwood de Forest, Garrett Eckbo, and Florence Yoch - have shaped the landscape of California in distinctive ways. Contemporary and historical color photographs by some of the country's best garden photographers are complemented by rare black-and-white archival illustrations and detailed plans. Two invaluable appendices provide biographies of the major designers and information about visiting the public gardens cited in the book.