Review by Booklist Review
Truly a gardener's gardener, UK landscape designer Thompson proves that no one needs a PhD in color to enjoy the hues and combinations that nature and a few well-chosen plants can provide. Using the Royal Horticultural Society's 1966 color chart as her guide, she pens a figurative ode to 100 different colorations, featuring one garden in tribute to each, from the UK and places beyond, like the Hollywood Hills, Paradise Valley in Arizona, the Bahamas. She then deconstructs the individual components of that garden, enumerating the specifics for the plants pictured: species name, type, height, spread, season, light, moisture, hardiness, soil, and pH. Sidebars offer information on spring-to-winter foliage, Royal Horticultural Society gardens in detail (Hyde Hall and Wisley are two), the etymology of garden shades like white and ultramarine, and selecting a painting that most closely represents a garden's look and feel. Green, in short, is not the only color of nature.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Designer Thompson, in cooperation with the Royal Horticulture Society, ponders not just the "colours in the garden, but the meanings and effects created by them and their interactions" in this eye-catching survey. Thompson analyzes the "gloriously specific" Royal Horticulture Society's Colour Charts, a system "used by horticulturists worldwide for recording plant colours" and examines gardens for color palettes using the chart's specific tones: there's a garden that combines pink and purple for an "Impressionist Violet 1" palette, similar to the one used for Monet's Branch of the Seine Near Giverny (Mist); a purple and white "Spring Combination with a Twist" full of hyacinth and narcissus; and a Mediterranean "Tumble of Light" with "a soft and naturalistic style" that uses yellows and greens. Throughout, Thompson rhapsodizes ("There's nothing like pink to make us feel good"; "The dark green of the tree canopy is a comforting embrace of serenity") and advises ("Echoes are essential"; "it is important to remember to introduce colour at different heights"). New gardeners may find themselves a bit overwhelmed, and some color schemes don't seem so different--Thompson herself admits that the "Strawberries and Cream, with a Drop of Wine" array "looks very similar to the scheme shown in 'Wild Pastels.' " Still, serious gardeners interested in design and artistry will find this a worthy take on ways to use color. (July)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
