Envisioning the Garden: Line, Scale, Distance, Form, Color, and Meaning - Softcover

"This book is enjoyable to read and a visual feast, with a number of ideas that could be adapted to more humble settings." -- Current Books on Gardening and Botany published by the Chicago Botanic Garden "[A] fresh look and feel...excellent photographs... [U]nderstanding these principles can make the design process very exciting and enable the designer to achieve the maximum potential of each site...Mallet somehow brings a new and interesting way of explaining and illustrating the various techniques and certainly made me feel that almost anything is possible... [F]ull of excellent ideas on how to make the most of our garden spaces." -- GardenDesignUnlimited (UK) "Any gardener, no matter how proficient, can benefit by reading Envisioning the Garden...Inspirational for those who love their outdoor space." -- Woman Around Town "This book provides what every gardener needs: a splendid education for the eye, the mind, and the soul. Using elegant diagrams and beautiful photographs of French and English gardens to illustrate his points, Robert Mallet offers new insights into the importance of design in the garden and the landscape. In his unique voice, Envisioning the Garden tells the reader how to understand what we see and how to use the different elements of design to achieve what we want in our gardens." -- Lynden B. Miller "[I]deal for a gardener longing for a thorough understanding of what creates a more artistic mood, feel, or voice in a garden." -- Michigan Gardener "I am delighted to see this masterwork of French garden art and technique translated into English. Robert Mallet lays out the elements of garden composition so clearly and illustrates them so well that I cannot imagine a gardener failing to profit from this book. Wherever you garden it will open your eyes." -- Hugh Johnson

What style to give a garden and how best to lay it out are perennial puzzles for creators of gardens. Gardener/designer Robert Mallet shows how the basic elements of design-line, scale, distance, shape, color, and other sensory associations-can open the viewer's outlook toward broad perspectives or, conversely, can lock us up in a cage. Reviewing all these elements, Mallet explains what really works, offering a range of practical ideas that can be adapted to visually enlarge space and liberate the mind. He illustrates his ideas in 160 beautiful photographs and the skillful drawings of architect Yves Poinsot. Mallet was for over twenty years in charge of Le Bois des Moutiers, a park created by his grandfather in Normandy, one of the most beautiful gardens in France, where he was able to put his ideas to the test within the context of a masterpiece of scenic design.