Minimalist gardens, with their emphasis on clean lines, pure form, and a strong sense of space, are closely related to contemporary architecture and lifestyles. This book draws together a wide variety of minimalist gardens from around the world - large and small, urban and rural. The projects are grouped into thematic chapters, and the designers represented include Vladimir Sitta, John Pawson, Luis Barragan, Seth Stein, Jacques Wirtz, Tadao Ando, Martha Schwartz, Shodo Suzuki, and Isamu Noguchi; the book looks at the inspiration behind each garden and the frequent use of unusual materials and imaginative planning. The author also explains the philosophy of minimalism in gardens and related arts, as well as parallel trends in relaxed and ecologically aware planting. Also included are directories of materials and suitable plants for the minimalist garden.
Whitefield "describes an evolving system that is totally chemical free, requiring little input from outside the garden gate. His minimalist approach uses techniques such as no-dig, raised beds, perennial vegetables, and self-seeding salads as ground cover, and mulching when appropriate. This minimizes garden maintenance whilst growing an abundance of produce year round"--Amazon.com.
Elevate your backyard veggie patch into a work of sophisticated and stylish art. Kitchen Garden Revival guides you through every aspect of kitchen gardening, from design to harvesting—with expert advice from author Nicole Johnsey Burke, founder of Rooted Garden, one of the leading US culinary landscape companies, and Gardenary, an online kitchen gardening education and resource company. Participating in the grow-your-own movement is important to both reduce your food miles and control what makes it onto your family’s table. If you’ve hesitated to take part because installing and caring for a traditional vegetable garden doesn’t seem to suit your life or your sense of style, Kitchen Garden Revival is here to show you there’s a better, more beautiful way to grow food. Instead of row after row of cabbage and pepper plants plunked into a patch of dirt in the middle of the yard, kitchen gardens are attractive, highly tailored food gardens consisting of easy-to-maintain raised planting beds laid out in an organized geometric pattern. Offering both four seasons of ornamental interest and plenty of fresh, homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs, kitchen gardens are the way to grow your own food in a fashionable, modern, and practical way. Kitchen gardens were once popular features of the European and early American landscape, but they fell out of favor when our agrarian roots were displaced by industrialization. With this accessible and inspirational guide, Nicole aims to return the kitchen garden to its rightful place just outside of every backdoor. Learn the art of kitchen gardening as you discover: What characteristics all kitchen gardens have in common How to design and install gorgeous kitchen garden beds using metal, wood, or stone Why raised beds mean reduced maintenance What crops are best for your kitchen garden A planting, tending, and harvesting plan developed by a pro Season-by-season growing guides It's time to join the Kitchen Garden Revival and start growing your own delicious, organic food.
'Designer Matt Keightley's first book is a thing of beauty and a valuable source of design inspiration - a stylish guide to a stylish garden.' Gardens Illustrated Do you want your outdoor space to look as stylish and as well designed as your home? RHS Design Outdoors will give you the ideas and know-how you need to make that happen. Award-winning designer Matt Keightley has curated a collection of 35 gardens, created either by him or by other leading contemporary designers, that will provide the inspiration to transform your outdoor space. Gardeners features include award-winning designers Jo Thompson, Tom Stuart Smith, Tony Woods, Charlotte Rowe and Andrew Wilson. For each case study there is a detailed plan, information on the plants and materials used and a wealth of gorgeous photography by leading garden photographer Marianne Majerus. The designs are organized into five categories: Showstoppers at Home - high-design concepts that are nonetheless achievable; Family-friendly - gardens that incorporate play areas and socialising; Minimalist - spaces with larger areas of hard landscaping and bold, restrained planting; Plants First - gardens where more than half of the outdoor space is planted; and Other Spaces - roof terraces, basement areas and front gardens. This wide array of garden styles means that there is inspiration for all types of garden, and for all types of gardener.
This book presents the best garden designs of the last ten years from more than 50 top garden designers. It offers design solutions for every situation, every area, all tastes and budgets, and any size of garden. It draws on the talents of celebrated designers such as Tom Stuart Smith, Luciano Giubbilei, Charlotte Rowe, Ian Kitson, John Brookes, Cleve West, Dan Pearson and Andy Sturgeon. It also showcases the work of lesser-known designers whose innovating designs deserve wider recognition. The process of garden design requires many thousands of small decisions in the pursuit of the most appealing solutions for outdoor spaces. But this book makes the complex process simpler by offering ample choices of contemporary design for you to explore what’s possible, what’s practical and what’s affordable. Comprising garden rooms, ornamental details, styles and planting ideas, this book will appeal to every garden owner, whether they manage a small or medium sized garden, a roof terrace, balcony or courtyard space. It offers cutting edge solutions for those seeking an entirely new look as well as key details that can make all the difference.
Austere Gardens suggests another way to look at the landscape, the garden, and perhaps the entire world around us. It suggests that being open to other ways of observing and sensing can yield new insights and rewards, and that interest is found in places unassuming and overlooked as well as those complex and assertive. Perceiving is only one half the story, however. Realizing places using simple acts and reduced means is the other half. The history of garden-making reveals continued attempts to create an Eden, to surpass our given environment in abundance and delight, and by selected instruments transcend the constraints of site, topography, and climate. The alternative to this garden of inclusion lies in the landscapes of reduction and compression, for example the dry gardens of Japan. These might be termed austere gardens. The word "austere," as used in this essay, does not imply asceticism, but merely modesty and restraint. Austere landscapes may first appear devoid of interest if noticed at all. To those who do not look beyond their surfaces, these sites, and the world outside them, usually appear plain and uninteresting, or even lacking of the very properties by which we define a garden. But there are sensual, aesthetic, and even philosophical, pleasures to be gained from these seemingly dull fields should we attempt to appreciate them. These qualities, normally associated with abundance and complexity, may be found in a different way, and at a different level, in austere terrain. Although the subject of the small book is gardens, or more broadly taken, landscapes that may be read as gardens, many of the examples are nonetheless drawn from art and architecture, from history as well as contemporary times. The images that accompany the text tell their own stories, illustrating what can be accomplished using frugal means or through basic acts like digging, piling, planting, cutting, and clearing. In an era where resources appear to be dwindling and populations growing, attitudes that value simplicity and reduction also gain a moral dimension.
Minimalism is the thing that gets us past the things so we can make room for life's most important things—which actually aren't things at all. At age 30, best friends Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus walked away from their six-figure corporate careers, jettisoned most of their material possessions, and started focusing on what's truly important. In their debut book, Joshua & Ryan, authors of the popular website The Minimalists, explore their troubled pasts and descent into depression. Though they had achieved the American Dream, they worked ridiculous hours, wastefully spent money, and lived paycheck to paycheck. Instead of discovering their passions, they pacified themselves with ephemeral indulgences—which only led to more debt, depression, and discontent. After a pair of life-changing events, Joshua & Ryan discovered minimalism, allowing them to eliminate their excess material things so they could focus on life's most important "things": health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution.
The best-selling phenomenon from Japan that shows us a minimalist life is a happy life. Fumio Sasaki is not an enlightened minimalism expert or organizing guru like Marie Kondo—he’s just a regular guy who was stressed out and constantly comparing himself to others, until one day he decided to change his life by saying goodbye to everything he didn’t absolutely need. The effects were remarkable: Sasaki gained true freedom, new focus, and a real sense of gratitude for everything around him. In Goodbye, Things Sasaki modestly shares his personal minimalist experience, offering specific tips on the minimizing process and revealing how the new minimalist movement can not only transform your space but truly enrich your life. The benefits of a minimalist life can be realized by anyone, and Sasaki’s humble vision of true happiness will open your eyes to minimalism’s potential.
"The author introduces the philosophy of minimalism in gardens and related arts and discusses the world-wide development of parallel friends in more relaxed and ecologically aware planting. The presentation of individual gardens reveals the inspiration behind each one, the relationship of space and proportions, and the frequent use of unusual materials and imaginative planning."--BOOK JACKET.
