A Pattern Garden: The Essential Elements of Garden Making

by Valerie Easton

A Pattern Garden gives us the tools for creating our own highly satisfying garden spaces. Easton identifies 14 garden patterns that she sees as fundamental to successful design and that will turn any landscape into a memorable and rewarding retreat. This book will help you identify what pleases you, and why, and provide inspiration and direction in the planting and layout of your own garden. Discussions of essential patterns, such as the creation...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0881927805
• ISBN13: 9780881927801
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Timber Press (OR)
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 2.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 9.7" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

Creating Gardens Where We'll Love to Spend Time

Thanks to Val Easton's new book, A Pattern Garden, I'll be happily adding mysterious destinations and some fanciful surprises to my old garden this summer. Fun! This is such a good book; it's informative, beautiful (inspiring photography), but best of all are it's suggestions and encouragement for gardeners to turn their yard space into intriguing areas where they and their families will love spending outdoor time.

Another Superb Book from Ms. Easton

We have been following Ms. Easton's garden writings for years in newspapers, magazines and her other acomplished manuscripts Artists In Their Gardens and Plant Life. We have found her writings to be both informative and entertaining, a hard combination for many authors but critical to the reader. Her newest book, A Pattern Garden, weaves a rich tapestry of information and soulful thinking. The garden is a place of sanctuary and highly personal. Ms.Easton takes the essential 14 "patterns" of our gardens and helps us clarify their role and importance. She offers us tools to both strengthen and personalize an existing garden and lay the foundation to build a new one. In reading this book we felt empowered to try new things and be adventuresome. It also gave us a greater understanding and enjoyment of our own garden. Besides all the practical information offered, A Pattern Garden is a must read for anyone who wants to have a greater appreciation of their connection with the garden, nature, and the role it plays in their life.

Essential Reading

There have been numerous occasions throughout my gardening career- in my garden and while working in others- that I have turned to garden design books for inspiration and guidance. Too often it has been case that these books- many now considered classics- illuminate principles of design that are inapplicable to the average gardener, i.e., the gardener who cannot afford a top end designer. From the moment I opened Val Easton's book, I discovered at last a book which was charged with bursts of creative esprit, an inviting and understandable format and an engaging dialogue between Easton and her readers. In concert with outstanding and well interpreted photography, I believe this book should find its way into every serious gardeners library.

Sensuous, thoughtful gardening insights

For years, I have enjoyed Valerie Easton's stylish books and weekly articles in the Seattle Times. I am consistently inspired by her gardening and design knowledge and the sensible, easy way she communicates her ideas. Having just received her new book, A Pattern Garden, I am totally wowed by the incredible photographs and gorgeous layout of this showpiece - it is a stunningly beautiful book. Staying true to her straightforward approach, Ms. Easton has taken gardening to a new level of thoughtful interpretation. Keeping her ideas accessible for lay gardeners such as myself, she has successfully described the "feeling" of a great garden, making it something tangible and attainable. This is a must-have book for everyone who tends a garden - a wonderful exploration into the heart and spirit of the gardens we instinctively find attractive and to which we feel emotionally connected. I can't wait to incorporate some of these concepts into my garden. This book is destined to be a garden design classic.

The new "bible" of garden design!!!

The best book I have EVER read on garden design!!! Ms. Easton deserves high praise for her work!! She explains complex design ideas in a way that is easy to understand and easy to put into practice!! The book emphasizes that these principles can be used in gardens of any size or style or price range. (I was able to implement some of her patterns the same day for under $10.) Ms. Easton shows you how to make your garden a good-feeling, positive place to be FOR YOU. Far from the preening diletante who wants you to apply ideas from her 10 acre garden to your postage-stamp yard in a cookie cutter manner, Ms. Easton encourages us to customize your space to suit your needs and desires. This book is one of my top-3 all time favorites!!