Glorious Gardens: Designing, Creating, Nurturing

Exploring gardening's broad reach (from desert to beach) and myriad horticultural details (woodland flowers to pond snails), this sumptuous volume, illustrated with 250 color photographs, leads readers along an intimate path with stops to view 10 types of gardens. In ""Small Gardens,"" a trompe l'oeil plant design magically extends a garden's depth. ""Water Gardens"" considers both the contemplative appeal of mirror-like water as well as the lively charm of a livestock pond that attracts other wildlife. Likely to be the most popular chapter, ""Weekend Gardens"" features the new American garden style of carefree ornamental grasses and simple plantings that serve as a stage for nature's free show--the wind's movement, light, snow, birdsong and native rocks ""bare to the sky."" Weaving lively prose, photographs and informational sidebars presenting imaginative design concepts with practical instructions on construction, plants and maintenance, Heriteau, a gardening writer, is both armchair gardener's muse and dirt digger's coach. Garden Book Club selection. (Nov.)