Joe Eck: Elements of Garden Design

In Elements of Garden Design, Joe Eck has created a rhetoric of designing gardens - a series of succinctly expressed and easily grasped definitions of key concepts, useful both to the complete novice and the experienced professional. These essays explore the mysteries of garden design, forming an indispensable primer on the making of a garden.
The book is illustrated with thirty-five line drawings by Lisa Brooks that visually support the main concern, which is to address at once the abstract thought that goes into the shaping of a garden as well as its concrete realization. The most theoretical concepts, such as "intention" or "harmony," are discussed and illustrated alongside the most practical - such as decks, fences, gateways, utility areas, vegetable gardens, and places for children to play.
The publication of Elements of Garden Design, already acclaimed by important garden writers and designers in America and England, is a significant event in American gardening. It is destined to be a bible for the growing number of serious American gardeners.