Picture this Garden

          

Picture Books are not just for children. Gardens and nature have been the subject of artists from Monet to Ansel Adams.  The Lake Forest Library has a large collection of oversize "coffee table" books featuring gardens from all over the world, traditional and modern, small and large.If you simply want to relax and curl up with a beautiful garden or be inspired to design your own please ask at The Adult Service desk.

Take a journey through Marie-Antoinette's private kingdom. This garden, Petit Trianon was a gift presented to the Dauphine by her husband Louis XVI: "To you who love flowers so, I present this bouquet". Stroll through beautiful botanical illustrations from the royal court artist accompanied by entertaining anecdotes, medicinal recipes and stories from The Court .  From Marie-Antoinette's Garden:An Eighteenth-Century Horticultural Album by Elisabeth De Feydeau.
                                                                                  
Step across the channel and into twenty five significant English Gardens, lushly photographed and open to all via Tim Richardson's artistic eye. The tree house designed for Princes William and Harry at Highgrove, a Sunken Mediterranean garden at Packwood House, walled gardens with whimsical topiary at Daylesford House. Contrast the traditional with Througham Court's edgy unconventional art and design and Crockmore House's modern aesthetic. The New English Garden by Tim Richardson.
                                                                                                                
Expand your view of the garden: look up.The Vertical Garden:From Nature to the City by Patrick Blanc is filled with stunning photos of vertical gardens in nature and vertical gardens in architecture. These living walls defy gravity, they are ever changing works in progress: indoors and out, hotels, cafes and homes and even an underground car park.

                                 .




Step right in and join the party. Lisa Newsom's  Veranda:The Art of Outdoor Living is not just about the garden: the architecture, the design details and the story behind them will draw you in. Whether it's a garden in the Cotswolds, Charlote Moss's East Hampton garden, or a Kathy Ireland's French country farmhouse on 30 acres in Los Angeles  the vibrant photography will instill your senses just in time for Spring.

.