Northwest Home Landscaping Including Western British Columbia

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Just what I was looking for!
I did a bunch of research to find a book that would cover landscaping layouts with pictures that looked like what I want my yard to look like. I went to the library and got out ALL (well, almost) the books on landscaping. This was the only one that had what I was looking for: lots of different areas of the yard, sunny vs. shady layouts for the same spaces, plants that are low maintainance. I know I will use this book for a long time, and for many areas of my yard.

4 Stars Not a bad book, but sort of "canned"
This book is all right if you are looking for ideas of plant layouts or how to devise a landscape setup for a very specific area of your property. Scenarios are shown in sketch format in, for example, front yards, big backyards, yards with slopes, places where you want to screen things (air conditioner units, trash cans). After each scenario sketch, real photographs of the suggested plants are shown, along with a brief descirption of the plant (height, width, Latin and English names, sun or shade, etc.) A small section at the end is devoted to the mechanics of accomplishing hardscape features such as retaining walls, patios, and arbors.

The book seems like it would be a good resource if you were writing a term paper, but it seems too shallow for a serious relandscape job. Many of the suggested plants are repeated in multiple scenarios, so there is not a very large variety of plants. It is also very skimpy on flowers, focusing mostly on shrubs with a few trees and groundcovers. I don't think I'd buy this book if there'd been a chance to see it before buying, but now that I have it, we'll keep it.

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