The book is unpretentious. It is smallish. It comes in a very plain looking brown/gold wrapper with a well proportioned navy blue title box. It doesn't have full page color photo layouts, or any photography for that matter. It doesn't pretend to be a coffee table tome. It has widely dispersed monotone pen and ink drawings (by Lisa Brooks) that actually illustrate the topics being discussed within proximity of the drawings.
The chapters are short. They are not wordy, but they say a lot. Each chapter is narrowly focused on the topic at hand and nothing more. The prose flows, it is earthy, it is sound. It reveals the author's thoughts and feelings. It speaks to the reader, the gardener, the (would be) designer.
In this small, unpretentious book Joe Eck has done a wonderful job of fulfilling his intent as stated in the forward; "I hope that new gardeners, just beginning to think the shaping and configuring of garden space for enduring pleasure, will find perceptions within this book that will guide them in their choices and help them avoid costly and painful errors. It would be nice to suppose, also, that gardeners of some experience could find within these pages answers to questions that have baffled them, or a sentence or two that will coalesce a perception they have been on the edge of grasping for some time."
When one first delves into this book, he encounters a series of chapters that briefly yet effectively describe various concepts and elements of landscape design. These chapters help the reader develop the basic understanding or as the author might say the structure, needed to effectively engage in the design process. Topics covered in Part I, Theory include the use and management of spatial functions such as site, structure, rooms, access, scale mass, symmetry and shape as well as more esoteric concepts such as intention, style, frame, harmony, contrast, repose and time.
These opening 15 chapters, at first, seem to sit each unto itself. However, by the time the readers reach chapter seven or eight, they realize that these chapters actually weave in and out of each other. They are seemingly separate, yet intricately entwined. For instance, when one reads mass they learn that mass creates rooms and structure and "second, just as plants that carry significant mass create the larger structures of a garden, so also do they establish a rhythm within it". The weaving is seamless, yet assuredly is there. It invites you to re-read the previous chapters to regain new insights that you may have glossed over before. The result is that each chapter ends up providing much more information than expected based on its own length. Readers gain by better understanding of the concepts presented and how they are juxtaposed.
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