Paul Bangay is an Australian garden designer and author of many gardening related books. I confess I was not aware of his work (which is totally my bad) when I was asked if I wanted to review his new book; but a quick internet search told me all I needed to know that this was going to be a book worth reviewing.
This is a big book of big garden design and it is quite a heavy hefty book. It is a book that shouts quality at you: the quality of the design projects and the quality of the book itself. The photography by Simon Griffiths is superb. I can see from Paul's website that he works with Simon quite often on his books and their collaboration works well.
The featured gardens are located in France, Australia and New Zealand. They all suit their locations and fit within their landscapes. The key word here though in the title of the book is 'big'; these gardens are big. Paul tells us that city gardens are more constrained as space is such a premium but out in the countryside gardens have space and scale. The introduction to each garden tells us the amount of square metres each garden is. Now I have to say that I struggled to picture this so I converted some of the acres. After I had fainted and picked myself up again and continued to read the book. The smallest garden in the book is around one acre and I think the largest is around 38 acres. To a town dweller like myself this amount of space is just mind boggling.
The book also includes plans of each garden, their climatic zone, soil type and how many plants used. The amount of plants used is fascinating. This information is really helpful in bringing insight into the gardens. Plus at the back of the book there are plant lists (or shopping lists as I like to call them).
Yet the important thing for me was not so much about about how big the gardens were: yes it is stunning to see how impressive they are and, quite frankly, well beyond the reach of anything I can even try to aspire to; but I can/did learn from these designs and I can/did find inspiration that can translate to my garden.
Not only did I get ideas but I started to plan my dream garden put together from the book. I would want the grass banked amphitheatre from the Coastal Garden, the tree planting from the Modern Garden, the box balls from the Rill Garden, the perennial planting from the City Garden - oh I could go on. As I'm looking at the City Garden I think I can see some of the influence of Gravetye Manor that Paul refers to in the introduction of this book. I found it really enjoyable how relatable the book is: whilst much was different, having the information on the climatic zones and soil types made it completely understandable to what might be possible.
Thanks for the book review. It looks/sounds like a great one, and I'll look into it. :)
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