Desert Gardens

Rating:
Summary: In defense of prickles...
Review: As the owner of one of the gardens featured in the book, I confess to a slight bias in loving this book - but I have to say with as much objectivity as I can muster that Ms. Levick and Mr. Lyons have done a superb job. Levick's photographs, in particular, are magnificent; she made my garden look better than I ever thought it could.

The review by "reader from Encinitas" complains that the title of the book should have included "of Southern California;" in defense of Lyons and Levick, that WAS originally part of the title. It was the publisher's decision to remove that portion of that important qualifier, in the hopes of giving the book wider appeal.

I would also suggest to the reader from Encinitas (whom I suspect I know) that she open her mind to including more of these dramatic, sculptural plants to her garden, prickles or no. The plants are not dangerous if handled with a modicum of caution, and as this book brilliantly illustrates, their contribution to a garden can't be matched by any canna or banana.

Rating:
Summary: Desert Gardens [Southern California Style]
Review: My husband has a decided dislike of any plants in the "out to get you" category, and since I share his loathing of thorns we have neither cacti nor roses in our garden. That being said, if you think "desert garden" means little more than prickles and sand let me assure you that this beautifully-illustrated book will change your mind.

As Melba Levick's stunning photos so clearly show, gardens composed primarily of low-water plants can be beautiful and, more perhaps importantly, can be touchable as well. Although great care needs to be taken with many of the cacti (especially those species with barbed spines), there are supple succulents with no dangerous protrusions, and other user-friendly plants combine to great advantage in the 18 gardens shown.

Occupying a relatively narrow area of coastal Southern California (with just a few exceptions), these private and public gardens showcase the passions of their owners. I've visited a number of them and find the descriptions of those to be both accurate and evocative, with their successes and shortcomings (in the author's view) both pointed out. Author Gary Lyons shares with these gardeners a love of things spiny and weirdly twisted (his own garden is one of the 18 featured), and he makes clear his belief (which I share) that plants should be allowed to grow in a setting which suits them best and not primarily used in an overly-controlled manner (as in the new Getty Museum gardens).

I especially liked reading about the gardeners and how they came to develop their passions for these particular plants, and it would have been especially nice if a small photo of each gardener was included. One minor quibble I have is that the book should have been subtitled "of Southern California," as I was disappointed to find that it had a rather limited geographic scope. On the plus side, it has made me want to re-visit The Huntington Gardens and spend more time checking out the desert section rather than heading straight for the sub-tropical jungle areas. And I was inspired by it to acquire a few aloes this week to tuck into my Mediterranean front yard, and a couple more succulents for the drought-tolerant section, too.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't live up to its promise
Review: This book was a disappointment. The text is uninspiring and the photos do not convey the gardens they supposedly portrait. The quality of the photos is very good, but most of them show small sections of the gardens or even just a few plants. Moreover, often the plants shown are rather common.
We were hoping to see photos that give an overview of each garden so one gets a feeling for the organization of space, layering of plants, depth, etc. None of that. Just pretty pictures. A few close-up of specimens is great as a complement, but not as the only photos.
We know two of the gardens rather well and feel that the photos just don't even come close to conveying any of these gardens' interests. Too bad, should have saved the money for a better book...