San Antonio College Library

Two of Europe's foremost garden historians demonstrate the features and structure of the traditional English formal garden. Photographs and drawings document ten full tours of such prominent sites as Parnham House, Hestercombe Garden, Sissinghurst Castle, and other gems of the British Isles. 150 color illus. 70 b&w drawings & plans.

The author provides a study of English garden design in the 20th century. It begins with Arts & Crafts gardens, typified by herbaceous borders & modern planting, & continues with the Edwardian debate between formality & 'wild' gardening, inter-war grandeur, post-war practicality, & the emergence of pioneering artists' gardens.

"Twenty-eight years ago I went to England for a three-month visit and rest. What I found changed my life." So begins this memoir by one of America's best-known landscape architects, Laurie Olin. Raised in a frontier town in Alaska, trained in Seattle and New York, Olin found himself dissatisfied with his job as an urban architect and accepted an invitation to England to take a respite from work. What he found, in abundance, was the serendipity of...

Turner, landscape architect and writer, begins with a good introduction of 18th-century England and its gardens. He follows with a biographical account of Lancelot "Capability'' Brown and his many contributions to landscape design, including the creation of numerous parks for the English nobility. In particular, 15 of Brown's landscapes (e.g., Blenheim) are covered in detail, with illustrations ranging from original plans to photographs of the maturation...