The clearing in the forest of sycamore, cedar, oak, and pine trees was surrounded by a musical breeze and colors of God’s paintbrush that beautiful autumn day in 1963. Chipmunks played as squirrels gathered acorns preparing for the winter season to come. The smell of chimney smoke from the town about a half mile up the path gave assurance of warmth and memory. Vanessa and her family lived in the small rural town that she knew all her life. The thirteen-and-a-half-year-old brown-haired girl discovered the clearing in the woods on a walk she took one day after school. Her imagination would take over as she sat on a huge rock in the middle of the peaceful clearing. Vanessa thought of herself as a princess sitting on the throne of her secret kingdom as she embraced the solace. She knew her parents and brother would discover the secret one day but never realized the heavenly legacy that the clearing held. Vanessa knew that she changed that day and in the days to come through family, friends, picnics, school dances, destiny, and the lessons of faith. The clearing in the woods was not just a place of solace, secrets, and smiles; it truly became Vanessa’s Garden.

Designing a garden is a complex task. Where do you start? What kind of skills do you need? What are the logical steps in creating a design? How do you communicate your ideas to a client, and how do you accommodate a client’s requests while maintaining the integrity of the project? The answers to these questions, and many more, can all be found in Understanding Garden Design. Most books on garden design focus on only one or a few aspects of garden design—choosing plants or creating a hardscape, for example. This comprehensive, accessible book lays out the entire process from start to finish in clear, precise language that avoids the pitfalls of “designspeak.” In fact, garden owners and clients of garden designers who want to understand more about the designer’s craft will be able to profit from the book’s lessons. Among the many topics covered are how to document a site, how to determine what a client needs and wants from the garden, how to take architectural features into consideration, how to think about circulation and lay out paths, how to use basic design principles, how to work with plants, and how to create a final design. Practical aspects are clearly laid out, including working with contractors and staying on top of the various phases of construction. This thorough handbook is profusely illustrated with helpful photographs and diagrams. A particularly interesting tool is the hypothetical garden plan that appears in each chapter to show how to apply the topics at hand. A practical, logical approach to the planning, design, and installation of a garden, this volume will be an invaluable resource for students, landscape professionals, and garden designers.

In a glittering underwater world, where danger lurks behind beauty and power, seventeen-year-old Miranda Sun must decide between her freedom and the love her heart ultimately yearns for.While taking a midnight swim in the ocean, Miranda Sun is pulled beneath the surface only to awaken in a glittering underwater city where she is being held captive by an arrogant young king, Marko.Marko wishes to marry Miranda in order to save his crown from falling into the hands of his sinister brother, Damir, who resides in the dark recesses of the city's underworld.But Miranda is desperate to return home and right things with her sister. In order to escape, she spends her captivity concocting elaborate escape plans and forms an alliance with eighteen-year-old Robbie, Marko's personal guard, in hope of securing her freedom.Miranda fights the pull of the glittering, beautiful undersea kingdom, her blossoming feelings for the smoldering king and the deep friendship with Robbie. But danger lurks under the glittering water. Miranda quickly discovers that even underwater, people have secrets....dangerous secrets which could cost her all she holds dear.

'The Designer's Guide to Garden Furnishings' provides both visual inspiration and practical information about how to choose and source just about every kind of accessory a garden might need. Vanessa Gardner Nagel, herself a professional garden and interior designer demonstrates a wide range of styles as well as providing an insider's expertise in this comprehensive guide.

Gardens are where man and nature meet. They change by the hour, day-to-day, and with the seasons. They carry associations about the status, approach to life, and sometimes even the political affiliations of their creator. Gardens can be intended for public enjoyment or private delectation; they can be open to the masses or closed to all but a few. They may be places of scientific study; havens for the solitary thinker; spaces for frolicking and games, for flirtation and for love. Presented with the many faces of the garden, artists in Western Europe have looked at the garden in different ways, extracting and emphasising those facets of the garden unique to their culture and their time. At the same time individual elements drawn from the garden whether architectural or botanic have at certain periods come to the fore and taken their place in the decorative arts of Western Europe. This book explores the way in which the garden has inspired artists and craftsmen in Europe between 1500 and 1900. "

Kiftsgate Court, perched on the northern edge of the Cotswolds Hills in Gloucestershire, is a garden composed of many different scenes. Some elements - the bluebell wood, the clipped hedging and the rose border, with its famously huge Kiftsgate rose - are traditionally English, but there are also areas of Italianate planting and terracing, and others where a mixture of perennials, roses and rare and exotic shrubs thrive side by side. Equally remarkable is the fine balance between continuity and gentle evolution that the visitor finds at Kiftsgate. This is largely because the garden has belonged to the same family since its creation 100 years ago. Three women have tended Kiftsgate, each one its driving force for a third of a century, and each building on the legacy of the previous generation. In 1919 Heather Muir and her husband, Jack, bought the house, which stands on a relatively narrow plateau from which a bank plunges 100 feet. Heather gave Kiftsgate its structure, laying out the semi-formal gardens by the house, planting the tapestry hedge and rose garden, and terracing the banks. In 1954 Heather was succeeded by her daughter, Diany Binny, who extended and developed her mother's planting, made more borders and paths, and refashioned the White Sunk Garden. Since the late 1980s Diany's daughter, Anne Chambers, has been at the helm, further modernizing the garden and its planting, creating new areas of interest, and opening more often to the public. As Robin Lane Fox, who has written the foreword, comments: 'There is nowhere else in Britain that has such a family tradition of planting and dedication ... It is intimate but many-sided, evolving but with roots in a remarkable past.' This beautiful new book - the first dedicated to Kiftsgate - is structured in two main parts. For the first, 'The History', Vanessa Berridge has had exclusive access to the Kiftsgate archive, which contains not only family photographs but also letters from their gardening friends, helping us to understand why and how Heather, Diany and Anne have gardened. Among the circle of friends and acquaintances who feature are Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote Manor (Kiftsgate's neighbour); Vita Sackville-West, the creator of Sissinghurst Castle Garden; and the horticulturalist Graham Stuart Thomas, gardens adviser to the National Trust. The second part of the book takes the reader on an extended tour of the garden, illustrated by the glorious photography of Sabina Rüber. The tour concludes with notes on Kiftsgate's signature plants and Anne Chambers's personal reflections on this, one of the great gardens of England.

A must-have growing guide for gardeners in the Pacific Northwest A gardener’s plant choices and garden style are inextricably linked to the place they call home. In order to grow a flourishing garden, every gardener must know the specifics of their region’s climate, soil, and geography. Gardening in the Pacific Northwest, by regional gardening experts Paul Bonine and Amy Campion, is comprehensive, enthusiastic, and accessible to gardeners of all levels. It features information on site and plant selection, soil preparation and maintenance, and basic design principles. Plant profiles highlight the region’s best perennials, shrubs, trees, and vines. Color photographs throughout show wonderful examples of Northwest garden style.