Product Description

Water has featured prominently in garden designs for thousands of years. Its appeal to the senses-its visually compelling light and movement and soothing splashing and bubbling sounds-still attracts the imagination of gardeners worldwide.

With a wealth of practical ideas and tips on water gardening, this indispensable book helps minimize the problems faced in building and maintaining a water garden, and maximizes the pleasure a well-designed water garden can give. Including design options-for every aesthetic, space, and budget-this guide is not only practical but inspirational.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #387677 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

About the Author
Philip Swindells has over thirty years of practical professional horticultural experience and now works as a consultant specializing in the conservation, restoration, and management of historic gardens, particularly water gardens. He has written more than two dozen books and contributes regular columns to gardening publications. In 1986 Swindells was awarded the Quill and Trowel international communications award by the Garden Writers' Association of America.

Customer Reviews

Didn't live up to the reviews
This book is beautiful to look at but not really very helpful at the nuts and bolts. Its design advice is mostly in generalities, and though its building advice is pretty good, I've found more detailed information elsewhere. The discussion of plants is useful up to a point because it has lots of nice pictures, but it, too, is short on practical specifics. For example, it doesn't define "hardy" by referring to USDA hardiness zones, nor does it explain just exactly how to plant. It will say something like 'Depth: moist soil to 6",' but what does that MEAN? For step-by-step advice on building a pond, I'd recommend the Ortho book All About Garden Pools and Fountains. I wish I could recommend a better book on the plant side of water gardening, but I haven't found it yet!

Excellent reference
We recently "inherited" a small pond when we moved to a new home and this has been a great resource to maintain the pond

The first pond book you need to read
This author describes the historical aspect of ponds, the current trends of ponds and the types of plants and animals found in each type of pond. He lists problems and solutions. Very insightful. I like the ID stuff at the end listing each important plants and animals found in a pond. (He doesn't have turtles though).