Customer Reviews:
Antiques from the Garden.......2001-04-12
This book is a history of antiques and architecture used in gardens since early times. Lots of great pics and very, very interesting to read and learn.
Book Description
Helps collectors arrange, enjoy, and perpetuate their hobbies.
Photo tours of entire homes offer ideas on room-to-room flow using color, fabrics, and accessories.
Shows how real-life collectors use decorative flair and ordinary products to carry out schemes for traditional, modern, and contemporary styles.
Dozens of fun projects will inspire both novice and expert home decorators.
Well-placed sidebars add informative tips on shopping, caring, and displaying collections.
Customer Reviews:
cheerful.......2004-08-23
I love this book, I love several of the collections (my favorite has to be the robots), and I just wish BH&G would publish a sequel. These aren't sterile environments and stuffy collections, instead there are bright, unusual, and FUN arrangements.
Very cool.......2003-03-05
This is a very cool book for people who love their stuff. The homes are in lots of different styles. What I really like is the attitude of the book which is a bit about breaking the rules instead of having boring, picture-perfect rooms. A very refreshing take on design today.
I totally love this book.......2003-01-10
if you are a collector, you will love this book as much as we do. It is intriguing to see how other people decorate with their collections. The book features styles that go from modern to traditional. I've shared this book with my design clients to show them that they can edit and organize their favorite collectibles to create well-designed rooms. Lots of good design information here plus tips on specific hot collectibles. This book is a real find.
A great book about breaking the rules.......2003-01-04
This is a great book about breaking all the so-called decorating rules. This book shows one do-your-own-thing home after another, each filled with its own unique collectibles. There's everything from fine (and pricey) Italian glassware to mid-century modern and tramp art and colonial treasures. And more. There is a lot in the book on how to decorate with and display collections. An interesting book packed with great photos and information.
Interesting, funky, stylish, weird, inspiring.......2003-01-04
Full of surprises, this is a book I bought as a gift for someone, and then I liked thumbing through it so much that I bought myself a copy too. The book lets you "tour" real homes around the country, but it also provides lots of decorating advice and in-depth info on the collectibles shown in the homes. The book has everything from Fifties kitsch to fine antiques and shows everything from modern style to traditional. It's all about collecting and then decorating with what you love (versus decorating to fit someone else's idea of what's hot at the moment). A fun and funky book for anyone who loves their "stuff."
Customer Reviews:
A beautiful book about an undervalued area of collecting........2007-08-01
The Art of the Garden... introduces the beginning enthusiast to the wonderful world of antique flower prints and is an essential addition to the library of the established collector of botanical art.
The gorgeously illustrated book documents the magnificent flower prints produced by notable artists of the 17th through the turn of the 20th centuries. These celebrated artists include Basil Besler, Maria Sybilla Merian, Mark Catesby, Georg Ehert, George Brookshaw, Robert John Thornton, Pierre Joseph Redoutè, and many others.
Illustrated with over 300 full-color images of original and valuable botanical prints, this book fills a void in the literature, as few good botanical references remain in print.
The text recounts the fascinating lives and passions of the artists and their patrons, the technical advances in printmaking, and the discoveries and cultural influences that shaped the depiction of flowers, plants, and trees. Also discussed are many variables affecting the values of original antique botanical prints including condition, rarity, historical significance, and aesthetic appeal. A range of prices is included to guide you in your collecting and a section on framing, displaying, and proper storage makes this an indispensable reference. A fascinating book for collectors of botanical prints, gardeners, and those interested in the history of flowers.
Beautiful Prints.......2007-06-10
Some of the most beautiful AND important antique flower prints are reproduced in full color in this book. I was amazed at the amount of knowledge and history detailed so elegantly. The authors include even more artist information on their site. Fineantiqueprintsdotcom has striking images and examples. This book is an excellent reference.
Fabulous.......2007-01-06
This book is well written. Straight forward, informative and intersting. The reproductions of the botanical prints are stunning. The book is super reference for both the novice as well as the more experienced collector. A joy to read.
Book Description
For My Little Pony collectors, the task of organizing their massive MLP collections can be daunting. Unless blessed with a photographic memory, it is an endless process of trying to recall which brush, comb, sticker or barrette came with which pony and how to tell how many parts of their Paradise Estate or Dream Castle are they really missing. Compiled by a My Little Pony collector since 1981, this inventory provides a simple and comprehensive way for collectors or even novices to pony collecting to organize their collections and make sure their sets are complete. Available in a handy pocket size for easy transport to flea markets, doll shows and other pony hunting grounds, this guide allows you to carry the knowledge of everything you have and everything you need to complete your collection around with you so that final missing piece will never elude you again!
Book Description
All gardeners love plants but if you love them too much the chances are you will end up with a plant collection rather than a garden. Help is at hand from confirmed plantaholic and architect Roger Turner, who describes how to indulge a passion for collecting plants without forfeiting the joys of a coherent, well-designed garden. Happily, the book prescribes little need to curb the excesses of plant addiction but simply recommends ways of focusing it to the advantage of all who share or visit your garden. Good collections need to be displayed well so that you can see them properly. The first part of the book looks at the structure of the garden as a whole, the balance of 'empty space' to 'planted space', the use of framing devices, and the value of paths in providing routes around the garden. At the heart of the book is a large section on plants that proposes ideas and solutions for making gardens with different types of plant collections. Here you will find schemes for displaying collections of trees from small groups to full-scale arboreta; recommendations for single-genus collections that look well planted together in one bed; and the ideal 'space-holder' plants that cover bare earth before prize bulbs emerge. Over 200 eye-catching and informative photographs highlight successful planting methods and illustrate the rewards to be gained from finding the perfect setting for a treasured plant. Plant enthusiasts, collectors and gardeners everywhere will unite in their enthusiasm for this practical book that provides the key to making beautiful gardens while keeping the spotlight on the plants.
Customer Reviews:
Not a complete horticultural course, but very helpful........2006-12-13
I have been gardening for more than twenty years. I have never taken a horticulture course or attended a master gardeners class. Basically, I garden all summer and read about gardening all winter. I definitely fall into the category of "Ooooo, that's lovely! Let me buy one!". It's true. I am a plant junkie, but it's the learning and experimenting that has given me so much pleasure over the years, and my gardens have greatly improved since reading this book.
Yes, Mr. Turner does talk directly to those who collect a single group of plants: for instance, euphorbias (his own obsession), daylilies, roses, etc. However, his book was very helpful to me even though I am of the "one of everything school of collecting".
For starters, though I have read many books and magazine articles on garden design, his book was the first that finally helped me to understand what the "bones" or "structure" of a garden are, and why they are so important.
And he gives many examples in his book of how to take a collection of a single type of plant, say Heliopsis, and mix it into a variety of other plants, so that the collection is no longer like a coin collection, all lined up in rows for viewing, but an integral part of a beautiful whole. I think he did a fine job of teaching this concept. I just had to think in terms of plants that are similar to one another, rather than being of one species,(ie. Shastas, Rudbeckias, heliopsis, heleniums, chrysanthemums, etc.)and apply his same design principles to them.
This being said, his book is not the one, complete, answer to all my questions on the subject of garden design. I can recommend several others that are excellent (beginning with anything by Pamela Harper, for example), but cannot say that I have yet run across that one "read it and you've got it" book.
I have decided that garden design is probably a natural gift for the lucky artistic few, and a skill that must (but can) be learned, practiced, refined, and experienced over a period of time for the rest of us.
To me, a good gardening book gives me a new, better, or expanded understanding of the knowledge that I may have acquired from another book, article, or speaker. So, I thought this was a very good book. I learned a great deal from it. I recommend it as one good piece of an enthustiastic, amateur gardener's education.
P.S. If you want to be able to read books on gardening that go beyond the Sunset Series, you simply must learn latin names for plants. I have found that one good reference book that gives an exhaustive list for plants that grow and thrive in my climate (which, for me is the Southern Living Garden Book)is a critical companion to have available when I read other gardening books. I see the latin names of plants in the book, look them up in my reference, and then have a better idea of my chances of growing it successfully. The more I work this process, the more Latin names I know.
Limited Design.......2006-03-13
If you are a homeowner looking for good advice on how to make your hodgepodge plant junkie garden look good this is not the best book for you. The author was very knowledgeable about plants, especially those that grow in his part of England. He was also very predjudiced toward certain plants and used them repeatedly in his advice. Most of the plants he cited do not grow in my area, and the fact that he mainly used latin names, which I know for the plants that grow near me, but not for others, made a lot of extra work on my part looking up their growth characteristics to compare them to the plants that grow here in South Louisiana. I did not find this book very useful at all.
More a general overview of garden design.......2006-01-11
Despite its title, this is in large part a general overview of garden design and types, with focused info for plant collectors rather limited. Also, the type of plant collectors he's thinking of are primarily those who comprehensively acquire plants within a single genus, not the far more common problem of the gardener who gets one of any type of plant he likes because he reads about it or sees it in the nursery.
The book does include examples of some genuses which might make a pretty good garden, and others which would not, and why. Varied genuses like Euphorbia are of course better than relatively uniform ones like Dianthus. Naturally, even in the former case, the garden should have some other plants for contrast of texture, color and/or season.
Basically, the book argues against most such focused gardens, which seems beside the point. ("You shouldn't have an overly focused garden" is rather like the advice to "eat healthy vegetables and eliminate fats" -- we already know it; what we really want is some trick to eat what we want, or recipes to really enjoy that are healthy.)
The book also explains when and how cottage gardens and meadows 'work' visually, which can help the eclectic gardener. But I think it would have benefited by some detailed examples of eclectic gardens that don't work, and how they were (or might be) fixed, by dividing, moving and reorganizing the plants that are already there.
Perhaps most useful are a few of the author's plant lists, notably the "yielding carpeters" -- species and cultivars that fill a space with low growth, and are easy to propagate, yet also easy to remove, and easily pushed aside by other, taller plants. But other such lists are readily found elsewhere (e.g., gray-leaved plants which like gravel). Arguably the book deserves 4 stars -- it should be useful for many people who haven't already read books on garden design -- but I rate it a 3 because it doesn't really follow through on its title's promise.
A book needed by amateurs stricken with the disease of gardening........2006-01-01
I am giving this book a full five stars because I have yet to find another to compare it to concerning this subject matter.
Living in the heart of the midwestern United States, the typical British tome offers very little of any substance to me. In spite of the fact that the author is British, I feel the book has much to offer if one ignores some of the specific plants that are used as examples. Mr. Turner instead outlines the pitfalls of merely collecting plants. Quite simply, he admits that plant collectors will continue to collect. However, he encourages and outlines techniques to establish gardening goals other than just "MORE!". Essentially: If you are going to collect, (And you will.) do your collecting well.
The often dreadful look of a collector's garden has long been in great need of discussion. This book does a wonderful job of broaching that subject.
Book Description
Many gardeners are vaguely aware of the "greats" of plant exploration, such as E. H. Wilson, George Forrest, or John Tradescant. Fewer may know the names of today's plant explorers or recognize the makings of a new golden age of plant discovery. Nonetheless, a quick visit to almost any nursery will reveal the bounty of these intrepid plant collectors, whose handiwork enriches gardens everywhere. The Plant Hunter's Garden profiles 32 of today's more prolific plant hunters. From the Czech Republic to the Rocky Mountains, Bobby Ward has sought out those explorers in the private sphere who are collecting plants specifically for horticultural introduction. While providing interesting details on the lives and careers of these new explorers, the real focus of the book is on the plants themselves. Ward asked each of the hunters to choose the very best treasures from their years of collecting, and has sumptuously illustrated these jewels in stunning photos. Many plants in these pages became bestsellers quickly after introduction from the wild, but hundreds more underappreciated gems are sure to entice and surprise any reader of this book. From the comfort of the armchair or the potting-shed table, readers of The Plant Hunter's Garden can embark on their own voyages of discovery in these delightful pages.
Customer Reviews:
A Must Read.......2004-11-25
This is a great book for someone wanting to read about how and where different plants come from. Ward takes you on a journey of exploration making each of the entries in this book an adventure. I really enjoyed reading about the Sargents and Wilsons of our time and the great plants they have contributed to. I have already found some plants that I can't live without.
The photography is first rate making each plant stand out at you with its vibrant colors.
This book may not be for everyone, but is well worth a look from master gardeners and those curious about the evolution of plants.
Book Description
In business under a variety of names since the mid-nineteenth century, the George Wade pottery in Burslem, England, has produced many forms of ceramic items. Wade is perhaps best known, however, for their delightful series of tiny porcelain animals known as Whimsies. Highly collectible, the Whimsies have been joined over the years by many equally charming miniatures, some sold by the company directly and others distributed as premiums. With over 370 color photos clearly showing over 1,000 items, this book showcases the endearing miniatures produced by Wade from the 1950s to the 1990s, including Red Rose Tea and Tom Smith premiums, Whoppas and Whimsie-land figurines, Nursery Favourites, Happy Families, Disney's Hat Box series, the diminutive Minikins, and many more. Also featured are Wade's highly detailed miniature villages--from England's Whimsey-on-Why to Ireland's Bally-Whim--original Wade boxes and displays, information on color and size variations, company marks, and up-to-date values for all items. A treat for Wade lovers everywhere!
Customer Reviews:
Very Informative Book on Wade Miniatures.......2007-09-22
The book 'Wade Miniatures' (2007) by Diane Baker is a wonderful first book to have if you are starting to collect Wade Miniature Figurines. The color photos are so true to life. Ms Baker includes some history of Wade of England and a current price guide for the figurines.
Most of the figurines included in the book start in the 1950's and continue up to the present. The Wade factory in England however, started out making porcelain pieces in 1810.
Everyone remembers the Red Rose Tea Miniatures that were included in the Red Rose Tea boxes. Those little Miniatures currently range in value from $5.00 to about $20.00 - $30.00. More exquisite pieces can range in value from $50.00 to over $400.00. There is a price range for every level of collector.
I had an older copy of her book from the Library. However, when the 2007 edition came out, I just had to have it as a handy reference guide.
As a novice collector, or for that matter, as an amateur collector, you will find this book to be an invaluable reference guide!
Happy collecting!!
Great!.......2007-03-08
Just what I needed! I have a collection inherited from my mom. I wasn't sure of the value or which pieces belong to which set. This book is very clear. Has great pictures and pricing information. Highly recommended.
wade seller ebay.......2004-11-01
Wade miniatures #2 is the top book on wades red rose tea and miniatures!!!
BEWARE = there is a wade miniatures #3 it is word for word - page for page - price for price THE SAME AS WADE #2 so save money and buy #2 instead of #3,
I hate it when I get ripped off by someone who claims to be giving me an updated price guide on a book I depend on.
this book in either copy is the BEST for miniatures,
Product Description
A hundred years ago there was a pronounced change in the direction of British gardening. The garden was transformed from a plaything for the rich to a democratic exercise: a hobby for the millions. Few figures were more central to and prominent in this transition than eccentric Reginald Farrer, whose passion for alpines would put a rockery in the backyards of countless enthusiasts and whose adventures in Tibet and China collecting elusive and exotic specimens: the wild tree peony, a new buddleaia, and even an entire new genus called Farreria, were the stuff of legends. But Farrer was a strange man, a tortured soul. Tormented by physical disabilities (he had a hare lip, a "pygmy body," and a cleft palate) he developed a personality to match: defensive, restless, yet productive and endlessly energetic.
Although "born to endless night," within his realm of horticultural exploration and exploitation, he was a giant, parlaying his disadvantages into advantages, becoming one of the great plant hunters of his age, repeatedly travelling to Japan and Tibet to collect new species and, through the influence of his extraordinary series of books, changing forever the art and practice of Western gardening.
Book Description
Tales of the botanist explorers who enriched our gardens.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent history and biography of plant hunters.......2000-11-28
This book is in a way the "Laertus" of botanical explorers, full of information and gossip, descriptions of the historical periods in which the explorations took place, and the technologies and economics driving the field forward. All of this in a great, slightly sarcastic tone that makes it a real page turner.
One note: for the most part, the book only discusses the actual plants in passing...a bit of botanical background might be useful. On the other hand, I'm sure it would be just as good a read without the background knowledge, as the book is more about people than plants.
A fast paced overview of horticultural collecting.......2000-05-23
In the wake of reading ORCHID FEVER, I looked for other books that dealt with the plant hunters -- particularly of the 19th century. What I found was this wonderful book that is even broader in scope, providing a fast paced review of highlights in mankind's never ending task of collecting, naming and growing plants. The author does not try to present only sensationalized material, and doesn't try to be "complete," but instead gives a wonderful and highly readable overview of the field. Highly recommended.
The triumphs and disasters in plant hunting.......1999-09-13
This exciting and in depth book contains excellent information on the many exploits of plant hunters around the world. It recites tales of both failures and successes. The author has a talent for weaving these incredible tales into stories you won't soon forget.
Amazon.com
It's one thing to be a gardener, and entirely another to be a plant collector. But the gardeners of the world are still interested in unusual plants, and collectors of rare plants do find it necessary to know how to keep their prizes alive. Ken Druse's earlier book The Collector's Garden covered much of the ground between the two areas of interest. In this fascinating small addendum to the plant collector's oeuvre, Druse helps gardeners to determine which of the 80 beautiful collectible plants he includes will be happy in their very own gardens. It's a perfect companion volume to The Collector's Garden as well as an interesting introduction to collectible plants.
Customer Reviews:
The future of gardening is here!.......1998-03-07
The world is full of wonderful and exciting alternatives to marigolds and petunias. This book shows exquisite examples and describes hundreds of companion plants for me to make my garden really personal and artistic. My garden doesn't look like anyone else's but everyone thinks it is beuatiful. I have all of Ken Druse's books.
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- Barnyard in Your Backyard: A Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, and Cows
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- Bloom County Babylon: Five Years of Basic Naughtiness (Bloom County)
- Burpee : The Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener : A Guide to Growing Your Garden Organically
- Color Schemes Made Easy (Better Homes & Gardens)
- Common-Sense Pest Control: Least-Toxic Solutions for Your Home, Garden, Pets and Community
- Courtyards: Aesthetic, Social, and Thermal Delight
- Creating Your Own Japanese Garden
- Creating Your Own Japanese Garden
- Desert Gardens
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General
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Garden Antiques: How to Source & Identify (Miller's Guides)
Antique Garden Ornament
An Affair with a House
