Book Description
The team behind the best-selling Mexicolor and Mexicasa has unlocked the gates to Mexico's patios, courtyards, and walled gardens. From private homes to luxurious resorts, In A Mexican Garden celebrates Mexico's hidden oases where lovers meet for margaritas at sunset and families gather for spirited fiestas. The dazzling array of featured properties includes rustic coastal hideaways, elegant Spanish Colonial mansions, rural haciendas, and Modernist architectural masterpieces. Melba Levick's stunning photographs capture page after vibrant page of bold Mexican design elements: swirling mosaic floors, elaborate frescoes, hand-carved stone fountains, and lush native plants. Gina Hyams' informative text explains the historic roots of these uniquely Mexican outdoor spaces. Garden design enthusiasts, fans of Mexico, and anyone who appreciates a siesta in the sun need only open this book to hear the quiet babble of fountains and glasses clinking to toast another beautiful sunset.
Amazon.com
Once upon a time these New Mexico towns were rough-and-tumble settlements peopled by drifters and dreamers. Sante Fe and Taos are still very much a cultural rendezvous, but far removed from their humble beginnings; Sante Fe has lately become known as the Beverly Hills of the Southwestern U.S. Among its full-time residents are the Dennises, the husband and wife author-photographer team who host this tour of their neighbors' private homes. The owners and designers weigh in with their own words about creating these eclectic sanctuaries, making it a very personal tour.
Book Description
At last, a beautiful, affordable style book that offers a rare insider's look at the highly personal and innovative aesthetic for which the Southwest is famed. Santa Fe residents Lisl and Landt Dennis have documented eighteen of the most unusual and awe-inspiring homes and gardens of the Santa Fe and Taos area. Meet the owners and designers, tour their homes, and witness the grand vision and loving detail they have devoted to their living spaces. With two hundred gorgeous full-color photographs, Behind Adobe Walls is an essential keepsake for the Southwestern native or visitor, and a visual inspiration for anyone who would like to create their own Santa Fe, wherever they may call home.
Customer Reviews:
perfect.......2007-09-15
This book is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Perfect condition and rapid delivery. Excellent service.
Nice photography!.......2006-07-29
I am a native New Mexican and even though the others did comment on how nice a book about "real" New Mexicans would be, I do love this book for the excellent photography. It is on my coffee table now and I just love looking at it!
The photos ARE in color..........2003-08-07
Unfortunately, the sample pages are in black and white. Never fear, they're actually IN COLOR in the actual book!
Got this for my Mom, she loved it!
I Live Here!.......2001-05-01
I would NOT loan out my copy of this book! I live in Taos (moved AFTER reading the book) and have since been to some of these homes, they are wonderful...and not at all pretentious...as one reviewer said. I use this book even today for inspiration in my own Taos home.
Colorful inspiration.......2001-02-21
I was specifically on a quest for inspiration for Santa Fe style decorating with bold color schemes, somewhat off-the-wall furnishing choices and the like. This book fit my needs perfectly, I'm happy to say. I agree with other reviewers that the book is rather limited in scope, but it was exactly what I was looking for. Beautiful photographs, clear writing, overall a very dynamic book.
Customer Reviews:
Great gift.......2006-01-06
I originally bought this book as a gift for my mother who lives in New Mexico. She then bought two additional copies for her friends living in the area. While you can't really grow much at high altitude in New Mexico, the book did provide some realistic suggestions and help choosing what might grow.
Book Description
The gardens of Mexico are some of the most extraordinary in the world, and the people of Mexico have cultivated a deeply spiritual connection and reverence for their land. Through generations of toil and inventiveness, they found ways to tame the soil, using bold combinations of plants. As Alfonso Alfaro writes in his introduction, the “culture was synonymous with plant life, and plant life was transformed into art.”
That heritage is still alive today in Mexico, and
Paraíso Mexicano beautifully renders and celebrates this legacy in the country’s exceptional gardens and landscapes. There are more than 280 photographs of radiant flora, emerald gardens that seem to levitate over manmade lagoons, modern creations of concrete and sand, and public squares, centuries in the making, that will dazzle with their brilliant and elegant composition. Many of the spaces produce fruits, vegetables, spices, and medicinal herbs alongside vibrant floral strokes of crimson bougainvillea, blue agave, wild lupine, and dahlias--the national flower of Mexico. Even structures play an aesthetic role, as world-renowned architect Luis Barragán demonstrates in one of his gardens by planting a pepper tree so its shadow would fall singly against the face of a luminous yellow wall.
Marie-Pierre Colle has filled the book with gardens from the tranquil seacoast to the hurried metropolis, from the hidden patios of colonial homes to public landscapes. The builders and keepers, farmers, laborers, and artists such as Octavio Paz, Diego Rivera, and Mexican film legend María Felix--her garden has never before been open to the public-help illuminate this mystical world that so symbolizes the rich and complex culture of Mexico. With breathtaking photography,
Paraíso Mexicano is a sensational and provocative collection that captures these fleeting glimpses of paradise.
Customer Reviews:
Paraiso Mexicano.......2007-04-28
The gardens of Mexico are some of the most extraordinary in the world. Many generations Mexico's people have applied their inventiveness to tame their soil using bold combinations of color, plants, and materials.
This book depicts exotic and lush garden spaces. There are dazzling and elegant combinations, interesting use of space that combine fruits, vegetables, spices and medicinal herbs alongside vibrant magenta bougainvillea, blue agave, wild lupine, and dahlias - the national flower of Mexico.
"Paraiso Mexicano : Gardens, Landscapes, and Mexican Soul" has spectacular juxtapositions of color and surfaces; wild cactus and succulents collection bordering views of Valle de Bravo's azure lake and mountains. Or, film legend, Maria Felix's enchanting outdoor mirrored pavilion with Charles X chandelier and Portuguese azulejos converging with saltillo tiles in a pleasing blue and terra cotta composition completing her Cuernavaca tropical garden paradise.
The more than 280 photographs are awe-inspiring illuminations of the rich and complex culture of Mexico.
Mexican gardens.......2002-03-28
Lush. Exotic. Sensual. A photographic examination of many of the superb gardens of Mexico An all too brief (each garden deserves a book in itself) look at Colonial Gardens, Hacienda gardens, gardens of Luis Barragan, and contemporary gardens. Generally each garden has a page of photographs and a page of text. A book to be enjoyed on several levels from the simply pictorial to the philosophy of gardening. A minor distraction is the large number of slightly out of focus photographs. A welcome addition to all gardening libraries both personal and institutional.
Book Description
Gloriously illustrated, this book goes behind garden walls to reveal 18 of the most beautiful private gardens in North America's second-oldest city, including one of the city's most venerable horticultural treasures, the public Bandelier Garden. The city's ancient cultural heritagethe intermingling of Native American, Latin, and Anglo presencesmakes its influence known here, and gardeners find their creativity in this region where days are hot, nights are cold, and water is precious.
Customer Reviews:
Inspiring Gardens & Art.......2007-04-21
This is a beautiful book for artists and gardeners. Wonderful color combinations in landscapes & hardscapes, all accented with inspiring art pieces. Good text but...the photos say it all! (No offense to the author, I know writing is hard work.)
Flower-power in the High Desert.......2006-10-02
Santa Fe is a pretty tough place to garden. At 7,000 feet, the growing season is short, winds are high, and a five-year drought has made watering your garden politically incorrect.
Nevertheless, serious gardeners persevere, and some of the better results are documented here. It helps to be rich, to have a private well, to have a gardener -- best if you have all three. The color photo reproductions here are simply splendid. The text ranges from OK to pretty good (but who buys flower-porn for the text?) Recommended for gardening and Santa Fe fans, who will surely drool over the lovely gardens, homes and art so beautifully portrayed here.
Happy gardening,
Peter D. Tillman
Santa Fe
The Secret Gardens of Santa Fe is a stunning portrayal.........1999-11-17
The photographs, in The Secret Gardens of Santa Fe, offer a glympse of a very special place in the western states. Sydney Leblanc does a fine--brief--job descibing the history of Santa Fe, and the reasons the gardens of this unique area do so well. Charles Mann has the touch when it comes to photography. He captures the mystery, the spectacular colors and design, and the fabulous art that adorns many of the gardens. A terrific book that makes one want to visit New Mexico, and see for one's self the magic of the high desert.
Average customer rating:
- Ornamental Plants & Flowers of Tropical Mexico
- Picture Book - Little Substance
|
Ornamental Plants & Flowers of Tropical Mexico
Linda Abbott Trapp
Manufacturer: Abbott Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Gardening & Horticulture
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Ornamental Plants
| Gardening & Horticulture
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Flowers
| Plants
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Plants
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1599712520
Release Date: 2006-09-30 |
Product Description
Identification and cultivation guide, fully illustrated with hundreds of color photographs. Includes common/scientific names, use/care information, cultivation/propagation tips, flowering habit, and history/little-known facts for over 100 of the most beautiful and interesting plants in areas frequented by visitors.
Customer Reviews:
Ornamental Plants & Flowers of Tropical Mexico.......2007-05-13
The best book ever. It's now my flower guide and how to book for south of the boarder.Absolutely fantanstic!
Picture Book - Little Substance.......2007-04-09
The book has some nice photographs of plants being grown in the area. Pretty much what you would expect to see in local gardens, or a plant nursery.
It has virtually no usable information on gardening or growng anything, - a few mis-identified plants as well (in my edition at least).
For me the book serves no purpose whatsoever, except i bought it locally (Vallarta) and part of the proceeds went to charity. Even so, had I seen the book prior to purchasing it I would not have purchased it.
Book Description
Recent U.S. Census Bureau information shows that the southwest holds incredible gravitational pull for a great number of Americans, more and more of whom are moving to live among the deserts, plateaus, distinctive mountains, and glorious red and orange sunsets that only the west can provide.
Americans have been hungering for the wide-open skies of the west since the early days of this country and out of their continuing migration has sprung Santa Fe, which continues to grow in importance, in meaning, and in influence.
Santa Fe's popularity is immense. The "Santa Fe style" can now be found all over the country, manifested in clothes, furniture and furnishings, and interior design. Santa Fe: Houses and Gardens, with its sumptuous photography and lucid prose, makes clear that this popularity is well-founded.
Santa-Fe: Houses and Gardens presents the most significant and influential houses of the region, including Mabel Dodge's house of 1918, with its hand-painted windows by D. H. Lawrence; the house of Randall Davey, an artist who was influential in the movement to revive traditional adobe building techniques; and the Myrtle Stedman house, built following her injunction that it be "stretched out like a lizard in the sun." This book does not limit itself to traditional historic adobe houses, but covers many of the region's most important private homes and museum houses with their gardens.
Customer Reviews:
Perfect.......2007-09-15
This book is exactly what I was looking for. Perfect condition and rapid delivery. Great service.
Book Description
New Mexico gardeners have long needed this book--a careful guide to the trees, shrubs, ground covers, and smaller plants that thrive in the state's many life zones and climates. In a state where the altitude varies from 3,000 feet above sea level at Carlsbad, to 13,000 feet at Mount Wheeler near Taos, where the annual rainfall is anywhere from 7 inches at White Sands to 30 inches in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where the soil is loose and gravelly, or thick and hard, or dark and rich, this guide, organized by regions and specific cities, will be especially useful. It also includes information on adjacent areas in Colorado and Arizona and in El Paso. In addition to the top hundred-plus species for each location, the author provides suggestions for more adventurous gardeners and information on historic landscapes around the state. He also points out a favorite well-planned and well-maintained garden or landscape that is open to the public in each community.
A landscape architect in Albuquerque for twenty-five years, Baker Morrow is intimately acquainted with how things grow in New Mexico. He is also generous in sharing his personal preferences. He mentions the species he likes "for their toughness, adaptability, and sturdy beauty in a difficult climate," and also the ones he admires for "their cheerfulness and their ability to grace our lives with shade, with helpful protection from the wind, and an endless series of wonderful colors." With many hundreds of native and exotic species readily available, no New Mexico gardener can afford to be without this book.
A thorough, richly illustrated and practical guide to what grows best in every part of the state and adjacent areas.
Customer Reviews:
Best Plants for NM.......2007-06-17
I feel like i wasted my money on this book. it has not helped me pick plants for where i live and i plan to sell in a garage sale!
Really well focused on our state and our climates.......2005-07-24
This is by far the most thoroughly researched and thought out book on landscaping and gardens/plants of any book for any region I have found. What is great is that it is for us and not for Texas or Arizona or Colorado. These states have plenty of mention in other publications...The author even took to the time to research what grows in each town first hand, not by just looking at a USGA map for plant hardiness. I have recommendeded this book to many people interested in landscaping here in New Mexico and I guard mine like it was gold. Don't lend it out, you may not get it back.
Not a xeriscaping guide.......2005-01-16
I bought this book primarily for the plant listing, and am disappointed. After looking through it, I reviewed the title of the book and realized that it is not actually billed as a xeriscaping guide. There are some xeric selections, but lot of these plants grow great in New Mexico only if you water them like crazy. Some of them shouldn't be planted here at all, such as silver maple (browning at the edges of the leaves by the end of July, not just in my yard, but elsewhere in my neighborhood too), and salt cedar (a significant environmental hazard even within the Albuquerque metro area).
I liked the first part of this book the best - the general overview of gardening in New Mexico is informative and easy to read. The final section of the book, city-by-city plant guides, is just not very useful to me since I only garden in Albuquerque.
Best Resource of New Mexico Landscapes and Gardens.......2001-12-10
Xeriscape doesn't mean ugly. This book will help you find plants that are pretty and that won't take up a lot of water. IT's a great book.
This is our reference book for when we are adding something to our yard. We have a full acre that we are working on (slowly!) and this book has helped us every step of the way.
The color pictures make it easy to see exactly what a plant looks like. The color pictures also help when you are trying to find the name of the tree in some yard that you thought was pretty. The information it has on each plant is very useful- it gives you the area it will grow best in (example: Albuquerque or statewide in the shade or statewide up to 800 feet elevation). The other thing that makes this book a good buy is the plant list for different areas. For example, there is a plant list for Gallup/Grants area. These lists give you trees, grasses, shrubs, flowers and more that will grow well in your area.
This is the best resource out there if you live in New Mexico and want to have a lovely landscaped area.
stop wasting money and water!.......2000-04-07
Keeping plants alive in New Mexico is very difficult. If you're thinking of buying this book you already know this. If you do buy it you'll find out how to solve all of your yard and garden problems. This book tells you everything you need to know to successfully surround your home with attractive plants instead of the tiresome and difficult to maintain bluegrass lawn or gravel pit one sees so often in New Mexico.
Most importantly, the book lists plants suitable for every inhabited part of New Mexico. If you've learned to garden in Gallup but want to know what to plant in Deming or Santa Fe, this book is for you.
The plant lists and photographs make this book an essential money and water saving gardening tool for the New Mexico gardener. Buy it for yourself and give a copy to to your new neighbors!
Book Description
The name Luis Barragan evokes images of Latin American modernism-brightly colored plain surfaces set off against lush foliage. His 1,250-acre Gardens of El Pedregal, begun in 1945 on the lava fields of south of Mexico City, were dotted with houses and plazas, fountains and ponds, cacti and pepper trees. Barragan considered El Pedregal his most important project, and critics have described the houses and gardens there as a turning point in Mexican architecture. This book examines El Pedregal's program and form, its representation in architect-commissioned photographs and advertising, and its place within contemporary discourses on cultural identity, design and place, and suburbanization. Like our highly acclaimed Revolution of Form, Luis Barragan's Gardens of El Pedregal offers an in-depth analysis of this now mostly destroyed project through original documents, drawings, color and black-and-white photography, and critical examinations of the design process.
Customer Reviews:
Luis Barragan's Gardens of El Pedregal.......2001-10-25
This is a remarkable book, engaging and forceful, scrupulously researched and boldly imaginative. Keith Eggener's reading of Barragan's Gardens probes the crucial area of cultural studies with energy and precision, offering a sizable number of fresh ideas and unsuspected connections. A rare achievement; Eggener's study is not only an impressive and welcome contribution to the field of Modern architecture, but also a great pleasure to read.
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