Product Description

Renowned garden designer Gordon Hayward's newest book focuses on one major principle: creating front-yard gardens that will inspire and invite, transforming neighborhoods and encouraging people to create compelling spaces in which to relax, visit with neighbors, and enjoy a natural space. A front garden should welcome, enliven, enrich, and engage. < BR>

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104863 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In three previous books and numerous articles for leading horticultural magazines, Haywood has shown himself to be not only a talented landscape designer but also a gifted teacher. The front garden is one of the areas he explored in Your House, Your Garden and is the foundation of this examination of how house, garden, sidewalk and street can be integrated into an aesthetically pleasing and functional design. Haywood asserts that "front gardens welcome, enliven, enrich and engage us." He goes on to analyze key elements including style; driveways and parking; walkways; the front door; the front lawn; extending the garden to the sidewalk or street; walls, fences and gates; and sitting areas. Finally, he offers helpful, if relatively brief, listings of street-tough plants for six U.S. regions. The lush color photographs and illustrated landscape plans alone make this a valuable addition to any serious gardener's library. But there's an even more compelling reason everyone who enjoys gardening books should own this one: it's based entirely on Haywood's analysis of existing photographs. Explanations of his approach help readers learn to "look at these images, manipulate them, change them in your mind so that the gardens in these photographs become an inspiration for your own garden making." (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
The photos and text in this lovely book will inspire anyone who aspires to such beauty in their garden. -- San Jose Mercury News, February 24, 2007

From the Inside Flap
$29.95 U.S. Renowned garden expert and designer Gordon Hayward shares his step-by-step process of creating entry gardens that invite, enrich and enliven. The new American garden is presented within a variety of delightful, inspiring photographs and illustrations that show fundamental design principles to put to work in your own garden, no matter where it is in North America, no matter what size it is. Even the smallest patch of lawn can be transformed into a beautiful, stylish space. The Welcoming Garden provides the blueprint for creating your own imaginative front-yard combinations and offers fresh ideas in light of any budget or skill level. Discover how to Find your comfort level and gain confidence in your gardening abilities. Choose the style of your front garden to reflect your personality and home. Create edges with walls, fences and gates. Transform the strip between sidewalk and street. Design sitting areas that are open and inviting or cozy and intimate. Determine the right types of plants and trees for your area by using regional growing guides provided. About the Author Gordon Hayward is a certified member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. He is the author of several books, including The Intimate Garden: Twenty Years and Four Seasons in Our Garden, Garden Paths: Inspiring Designs and Practical Projects, and Your House, Your Garden: A Foolproof Approach to Garden Design, as well as a variety of articles for Horticulture Magazine. He lives in Westminster West, Vermont.

Customer Reviews

HAYWARD-Welcoming Garden
This is a decent edition, though I can't say it improves on Hayward's Your House, Your Garden or others in the field. The quality of the illustrations really varies, and some locations are redundant to YHYG. I was looking for advice about replacing my front lawn and wish I'd found more here. My top picks for garden design remain Natural Gardening in Small Spaces, by Noel Kingsbury; Front Yard Gardens, by Liz Primeau; and the Piet Oudolf books.

Designing for the Front of the House
The tradition in the United States has been to have a fairly plain front yard and to put the emphasis on the back yard. If we think of the front yard at all, it's usually pretty bland. The chairs, the table, the fountain go in the back yard.

This book kind of turns that around. Here are gardens for the front of the house. Maybe that's where the view is, maybe you just want guests to feel welcome, maybe you don't have a back yard, maybe you just want the house to be a nice from the front as the back.

Gordon Hayward is an expert in garden design. Here he concentrates on the front yard. He features many of his own designs as well as designs from all around the country.

The book is broken into ten chapters that cover all aspects of designing a garden for the front yard. It begins with a discussion on style and then has a chapter on each major component such as driveways, walkways, the strip between the sidewalk and the street and so on.

Each of these chapters is beautifully illustrated with full color photographs. The result is a raft of ideas that you might use as you create your own design.

Blueprints for Welcoming Front-Yard Combinations
"The new American garden means living and walking among plants, following a path from driveway to front door among ornamental grasses and Russian sage, talking with friends under apple and cherry trees at the front of the house." ~Gordon Hayward

Gordon Hayward's ideas can be incorporated into any style of garden. If you have a walkway to the front door or need to manage an especially large lawn, his ideas will create a beautiful nurturing space you will love coming home to.

The book is organized in a step-by-step design. You can see the complete design from a landscaper's viewpoint and then see the finished beauty in pictures. Some of the features include:

An Old Weathered House with a Cottage Garden
A Home Completely Surrounded by a Garden
A Small Garden around Big Front Steps
A Garden Running Straight to the Front Door (cover picture)
Sidewalk Garden
A Generous Sitting Area in a Small Front Garden
A Sunny Organic Garden

Each idea also has a special section of "Design Principles." The author explains the pictures so you gain a sense of how a designer thinks when planning out a new yard. There are many ideas to love and there is a good balance of creativity and practical solutions.

~The Rebecca Review