How to Build Walks, Walls & Patio Floors

Rating:
Summary: Not very useful for anyone.
Review: I recently purchased this book, along with several others, to help me with a backyard landscaping project involving a flagstone patio, walkways, and low retaining walls. I found this to be the least useful of the lot. It is neither a good how-to book nor a source of inspiration and ideas. It covers far too many different techniques, from stepping stones to pavers to bricks to concrete to flagstones, all of them at a fairly superficial level. It had very little on using flagstones, which is primarily what I wanted information on. Furthermore, some of the excavating and edging techniques recommended seemed at odds with what I had read elsewhere.

The book had some pictures of completed projects, but they were for the most part pedestrian and had little or no explanation of the design principles demonstrated in them. For a more comprehensive look at the topic, I would suggest "Start-to Finish Patios" from Ortho Books. It is much longer and covers both ideas and suggestions and building techniques much more comprehensively. It even goes into lighting and pergolas.