Price : $21.65

Product Description

Garden lovers and discriminating travelers will relish this armchair tour of the most beautiful and interesting gardens around the world. Succinct descriptions with stunning color photos showcase the creations of the worlds outstanding landscape gardeners, architects, and garden designers. From Spains famous gardens of the Moorish Alhambra at Granada to San Diegos Healing Garden, created for patients at the San Diego Childrens Hospital, this lavishly illustrated guide will delight both lovers of natural beauty and hands-on gardeners. Among the many gardens pictured and described in this beautiful volume are

• In the United States and Canada: Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Boscobel in New Yorks Hudson Valley, Williamsburg Gardens in Virginia, Magnolia Plantation and its Gardens near Charleston, South Carolina, Frank Lloyd Wrights Taliesin in Wisconsin, the Toronto Botanical Garden, Pacific Undersea Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia, and many more. . .
• In England: The Japanese Garden in Londons Holland Park, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, Shakespeares Garden in Stratford, Londons Victoria and Albert Museum Gardens, and many more. . .
• In France: The Gardens of Versailles outside Paris, the Garden of Claude Monet at Giverney, Chateau de Vauville in Cherbourg, and many more. . .
• The rest of the world: Boboli Gardens in Florence, Italy, Potsdam Gardens near Berlin, Germany, the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, Japan, and hundreds more.In addition to photos and a textual description, each entry cites special features such as fountains and architecture, the gardens size in acres, and the names of the gardens designers. The garden descriptions are organized geographically by country. More than 800 breathtaking color photos and illustrations.

  Customer Reviews

  Review date : 2008-11-18
  This a great resource book. However DO NOT attempt to use this book as a travel guide…if you want to see the gardens in this book I urge you to do lots of advance planning before you leave home. I bought this book before a trip to Spain 1 1/2 years ago. I went to the tourist information centers in the cities I visited in order to find out where these gardens were. In many cases, these were private gardens not open to the public or the visiting hours were so limited that it was virtually impossible to visit them. One garden in Granada I was steered to correctly. However, when I got there, I discovered it was closed the entire month of August! (I did peer in through the gates). I wish the tourist information had told me that before I ventured out there.

  On a recent trip to Rio de Janeiro, I had a similar experience with one of the gardens listed. I did find someone who was familiar with it, but it wasn’t open to the casual visitor.

  In conclusion, many of the gardens in this book are not open to the casual visitor, so use it with caution. If you do have your heart set on seeing some of these gardens, plan in advance before leaving home.

  Review date : 2008-05-22
  This was a great Mother’s Day gift any gardener would love. Beautiful pictures of gardens around the world.

  Review date : 2008-04-18
  For garden-lovers a 1,000 page book crammed chockfull with gardens the world over is an enticing prospect – though the suggestion you must all see them before you die is a bit fanciful, and symptomatic of the depersonalized, random consumerism of today’s “must-see”, “must-have” and “must-do” lists. Unfortunately, the book itself is not quite what it could have been. Quantity decidedly triumphed over quality. Photographs are mostly small, often quite crude and grainy, and as often unnaturally, even luridly colored. Many hardly give an impression of a garden at all, but instead focus on detail or architecture. Descriptive entries are brief and superficial. Entries are arranged geographically, from north to south and from west to east, with remarkably confusing results. The accent is very strongly on Europe, the whole of China being despatched in less pages than the Netherlands. If you are looking for a gazetteer to guide you to interesting gardens while planning a travel itinerary, this book might just give you a useful handle. If you are looking for pleasing garden images or indepth information, look elsewhere.

  Review date : 2008-03-24
  This very thick book has beautiful pictures that inspires one to plant a garden & travel the world.

  Review date : 2007-11-25
  To cover 1001 Gardens in 960 pages is an almost impossible mission, yet Rae Spencer-Jones and his 70 contributors accomplished it.

  Every garden listed in “1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die” follows a standard listing format of designers, owners, garden style, size, climate, location and a brief description of the garden. Some of the gardens listed have half-page size color photographs. This book is very useful for you to gain a rough idea of the gardens nearby when you visit a city, it’ll let you know about the existence of a garden and help you decide whether to visit it or not. To this end, I think “1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die” is successful.

  All the gardens are arranged by geographical locations, including North America, Europe, Asia, Central and South America, Africa, New Zealand and Australia. I find the “Climate Classification System,” “Useful Address,” “Garden Directory” at the end of the book very helpful.

  “1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die” has 960 pages and color interior photographs and is a useful quick reference for garden tour!

  Gang Chen, Author of “LEED AP Exam Guide” & “Planting Design Illustrated.” LEED AP, AIA

  

Price : $8.79

Product Description

Create your own private nature preserve-with dozens of ingenious ideas to turn a typical backyard into a beautiful natural habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Experience the gratification of watching birds gobble seeds and other treats from your homemade bird feeder. Look on with delight as a mother bird tends to her babies in the protective hideaway of a birdhouse you have lovingly constructed from a dried gourd. Create a sunflower plantation, a bird teepee, a tent-style twig feeder, a pedestal birdbath. Follow the step-by-step instructions in this book, and your yard will quickly become an enticing playground, breeding ground, and feeding ground for colorful songbirds. And that’s not all-there are also projects specially designed to attract beautiful hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden.

Among the book’s special features:
- Projects require only a few simple tools and supplies and most can be easily and inexpensively assembled using only scrap materials found around the house

- Information-packed sidebars include tips for identifying the nests and eggs of songbirds and unusual facts and figures about birds and bird behavior

- Instructions show how to create baffles and barriers to keep squirrels, raccoons, and other unwanted guess away from the birdseed-along with projects for tending to these feeder-raiding marauders too!

The simple pleasure of viewing birds in your backyard is something to treasure every day of the year. Whether you are a seasoned bird watcher or are new to the hobby, you will find a wealth of inspirational ideas here to attract more birds than ever before to your backyard. And you’ll increase your enjoyment of this soul-satisfying pastime.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-07-18
Some great ideas…quite practical uses for otherwise discarded items and the birds really do respond! Highly recommend for group scouting project ideas because they generally don’t require specialized tools or unusual materials. I recycled several items that were otherwised destined to be thrown away. Thanks! Enjoy!

Review date : 2008-02-24
I own a good dozen or more books on how to attract birds to my garden. This book is definitely one of my favorites.

It contains a variety of very easy projects on best ways of providing seeds, making your own bird treats (like those expensive seed bells they sell in stores), creating feeding stations, planting habitats, setting up water stations, birdhouses and more. There is also a section devoted to hummingbirds and butterflies.

I really like that it isn’t a bird or plant identification book. One of my pet peeves with many of my other "project" books is that they dilute their content by including bird identification charts for instance – often up to 1/3 of the book with another third devoted to pictures and descriptions of the plants. I’d rather leave that to a specialized book and let my project books be filled with (imagine this) projects! There is a small amount of this type of information in this book, but it’s generally to the point and captured in simple and easy to read charts. I would suggest anyone looking for that type of material should buy appropriate field guides.

I love that the projects are pretty much entirely able to be made from recycled materials (like using the plastic tubes that tennis balls come in or metal coffee cans or plastic plant saucers for instance) and scrap wood. They are very easy and could be wonderful projects for engaging your kids with nature and getting fast results. Tips are also included for maintenance too (such as keeping feeding stations looking their best).

I also love the garden ideas – simple plans for small patches of specialized garden areas – there’s one for a self-renewing bird attracting garden with a ton of seed-producing annual flowering plants for instance; a garden for producing nesting materials, another for attracting butterflies by providing food for their caterpillars, one for hummingbirds and a number of others.

Overall, if you are trying to attract birds to your yard and especially if you are looking for ideas for projects you can do with your kids to give them an appreciation for nature, I think you can’t go wrong with this book.

Review date : 2007-12-27
This book will delight the Do-It-Yourself types who would rather put something together and attract birds to their backyards than to merely observe them in the wild. It’s a sturdy, glossy trade paperback with detailed line-drawings, tables, side-bars, and step-by-step project sheets.

It starts with a section of fast-and-easy projects for beginners to get your feet wet with the easiest of the various types of woodworking, cooking, and gardening projects you can do to attract birds.

Later chapters go into detail on each of the specialties (woodworking, cooking, gardening) so that you can either do it all or just focus on the chapters that address your talents.

The book also includes a Projects-at-a-Glance index so you can look up things to do involving Nesting, Water, Landscaping, et cetera. Highly recommended. Longer review at OrnateBirdGarden-dot-com.

Review date : 2007-02-21
This is a great book for anyone interested in backyard birding, no matter what size your backyard may be. There are articles on how to attract, feed, and house different birds.

Review date : 2007-02-16
I like this book. I’m a new bird watcher. I’ve made some of the projects mentioned in this book and they work quite well.

Price : $8.79

Product Description

Create your own private nature preserve-with dozens of ingenious ideas to turn a typical backyard into a beautiful natural habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Experience the gratification of watching birds gobble seeds and other treats from your homemade bird feeder. Look on with delight as a mother bird tends to her babies in the protective hideaway of a birdhouse you have lovingly constructed from a dried gourd. Create a sunflower plantation, a bird teepee, a tent-style twig feeder, a pedestal birdbath. Follow the step-by-step instructions in this book, and your yard will quickly become an enticing playground, breeding ground, and feeding ground for colorful songbirds. And that’s not all-there are also projects specially designed to attract beautiful hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden.

Among the book’s special features:
- Projects require only a few simple tools and supplies and most can be easily and inexpensively assembled using only scrap materials found around the house

- Information-packed sidebars include tips for identifying the nests and eggs of songbirds and unusual facts and figures about birds and bird behavior

- Instructions show how to create baffles and barriers to keep squirrels, raccoons, and other unwanted guess away from the birdseed-along with projects for tending to these feeder-raiding marauders too!

The simple pleasure of viewing birds in your backyard is something to treasure every day of the year. Whether you are a seasoned bird watcher or are new to the hobby, you will find a wealth of inspirational ideas here to attract more birds than ever before to your backyard. And you’ll increase your enjoyment of this soul-satisfying pastime.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-07-18
Some great ideas…quite practical uses for otherwise discarded items and the birds really do respond! Highly recommend for group scouting project ideas because they generally don’t require specialized tools or unusual materials. I recycled several items that were otherwised destined to be thrown away. Thanks! Enjoy!

Review date : 2008-02-24
I own a good dozen or more books on how to attract birds to my garden. This book is definitely one of my favorites.

It contains a variety of very easy projects on best ways of providing seeds, making your own bird treats (like those expensive seed bells they sell in stores), creating feeding stations, planting habitats, setting up water stations, birdhouses and more. There is also a section devoted to hummingbirds and butterflies.

I really like that it isn’t a bird or plant identification book. One of my pet peeves with many of my other "project" books is that they dilute their content by including bird identification charts for instance – often up to 1/3 of the book with another third devoted to pictures and descriptions of the plants. I’d rather leave that to a specialized book and let my project books be filled with (imagine this) projects! There is a small amount of this type of information in this book, but it’s generally to the point and captured in simple and easy to read charts. I would suggest anyone looking for that type of material should buy appropriate field guides.

I love that the projects are pretty much entirely able to be made from recycled materials (like using the plastic tubes that tennis balls come in or metal coffee cans or plastic plant saucers for instance) and scrap wood. They are very easy and could be wonderful projects for engaging your kids with nature and getting fast results. Tips are also included for maintenance too (such as keeping feeding stations looking their best).

I also love the garden ideas – simple plans for small patches of specialized garden areas – there’s one for a self-renewing bird attracting garden with a ton of seed-producing annual flowering plants for instance; a garden for producing nesting materials, another for attracting butterflies by providing food for their caterpillars, one for hummingbirds and a number of others.

Overall, if you are trying to attract birds to your yard and especially if you are looking for ideas for projects you can do with your kids to give them an appreciation for nature, I think you can’t go wrong with this book.

Review date : 2007-12-27
This book will delight the Do-It-Yourself types who would rather put something together and attract birds to their backyards than to merely observe them in the wild. It’s a sturdy, glossy trade paperback with detailed line-drawings, tables, side-bars, and step-by-step project sheets.

It starts with a section of fast-and-easy projects for beginners to get your feet wet with the easiest of the various types of woodworking, cooking, and gardening projects you can do to attract birds.

Later chapters go into detail on each of the specialties (woodworking, cooking, gardening) so that you can either do it all or just focus on the chapters that address your talents.

The book also includes a Projects-at-a-Glance index so you can look up things to do involving Nesting, Water, Landscaping, et cetera. Highly recommended. Longer review at OrnateBirdGarden-dot-com.

Review date : 2007-02-21
This is a great book for anyone interested in backyard birding, no matter what size your backyard may be. There are articles on how to attract, feed, and house different birds.

Review date : 2007-02-16
I like this book. I’m a new bird watcher. I’ve made some of the projects mentioned in this book and they work quite well.