Combining comprehensive text and superb photographs, Swindells's (Natural Water Gardens) newest offers a host of ideas for creating and maintaining many types of water gardens, from small containers with fountains to re-creations of natural landscape settings. The most ambitious projects will be beyond the amateur gardener, but the design ideas and the photographs of actual gardens that illustrate these ideas are so enticing that even novices may be tempted to try. The simpler projects—pools with miniature plants in pots, fountains in large ornamental jars, troughs with pygmy water lilies and dwarf rushes—are well within the reach of beginners. More ambitious gardeners may be inspired to create ponds, waterfalls, wildlife pools, water meadows, bogs, brooks, streams, even lakes. Instructions for making each type of garden are given through a combination of text and photographs that clearly illustrate each step in the process, from choosing and marking out the site to finishing the project with suitable aquatic plants. Accompanying each design idea are lists of water-loving plants suitable for that type of garden—including water lilies, reeds and rushes, bog plants, and floating and submerged aquatics—and there are chapters on how to buy, plant, fertilize, divide, propagate and care for these plants. This beautifully illustrated volume may feel more like a coffee-table book than an encyclopedia, but it covers its subject in depth. (Mar.)
Forecast:Packed with 400 color photos, and listed as Book-of-the-Month Club and Garden Book Club selections, this nicely priced volume will likely find its way into many a gardener's hands.
