P. Allen Smith's Garden Home - Creating a Garden for Everyday Living

by P. Allen Smith

From the book jacket: "In this groundbreaking book, popular television personality and renowned professional gardener, P. Allen Smith presents readers with a fresh new concept - the garden home. This is the private sanctuary between a home's interior spaces and the great outdoors, with 'rooms' for relaxing, birdwatching, cooking, entertaining, and simply enjoying the pleasures of nature.

Allen first walks his audience room by room through his own extraordinary garden home, explaining his choices in color, structure and purpose. in the second section of the book, Allen introduces his twelve principles of of design to guide readers in their own garden decisions. With the first six principles -- Enclosure; Shape and Form; Framing the View; Entry; Focal Point; and Structures -- he demonstrates how to establish the garden's basic framework. Then he offers ideas on how to apply the finishing touches with Texture, Pattern, and Rhythm; Color; Abundance; Whimsy; Mystery; and Time.

Allen's passion and expertise will inspire readers to carry the personality of their interior spaces into the outdoors. With charts, plant lists, simple how-to projects, and more than two hundred color photographs, P. Allen Smith's GARDEN HOME extends an irresistable invitation to create your own garden home."

Hardcover, 224 pages, published by Clarkson Potter, 2003.