Based on a PBS television series of the same name, this book is a compendium of facts and theories about all facets of earth science. The authors have assembled a tremendous amount of information on geology, paleontology, meteorology, geography, and more for the general reader. They lead off with theories about the formation of the earth and the first appearance of life on the planet; in subsequent chapters, they examine human interaction with the environment and its subsequent destruction. Written in a breezy, readable style and filled with photographs, this book will entertain as well as inform. This is not a work in which to seek in-depth discussion of any particular aspect of the earth sciences, but it is a good place to start.- Randy Dykhuis, OCLC, Dublin, OhioCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780831759995
|
Hardcover
The Map That Changed the World
By Winchester, Simon
In 1793, a canal digger named William Smith made a startling discovery. He found that by tracing the placement of fossils, which he uncovered in his excavations, one could follow layers of rocks as they dipped and rose and fell -- clear across England and, indeed, clear across the world -- making it possible, for the first time ever, to draw a chart of the hidden underside of the earth. Determined to expose what he realized was the landscape's secret fourth dimension, Smith spent twenty-two years piecing together the fragments of this unseen universe to create an epochal and remarkably beautiful hand-painted map. But instead of receiving accolades and honors, he ended up in debtors' prison, the victim of plagiarism, and virtually homeless for ten years more. Finally, in 1831, this quiet genius -- now known as the father of modern geology -- received the Geological Society of London's highest award and King William IV offered him a lifetime pension.The Map That Changed the World is a very human tale of endurance and achievement, of one man's dedication in the face of ruin. With a keen eye and thoughtful detail, Simon Winchester unfolds the poignant sacrifice behind this world-changing discovery.
Publisher: n/a
|
60931809
|
Book
Parks and Plates
By Lillie, Robert J
Many of our national parks, monuments, and seashores were established because of their inspiring geological features -- from the geysers of Yellowstone to the granite peaks of Yosemite. In Parks and Plates, Robert J. Lillie explains the fascinating geological processes that
Publisher: n/a
|
393924076
|
Krakatoa
By Winchester, Simon
The bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano -- Krakatoa. The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa -- the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster -- was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round die planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light.
Publisher: n/a
|
66212855
|
Hardcover
The Year Without Summer
By Klingaman, William K.
Like Winchester's Krakatoa,The Year Without Summer reveals a year of dramatic global change long forgotten by history
In the tradition of Krakatoa, The World Without Us, and Guns, Germs and Steel comes a sweeping history of the year that became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death. 1816 was a remarkable year—mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern U.S. and Europe in the summer of 1816.
In the U.S., the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer led to famine, food riots, the transformation of stable communities into wandering beggars, and one of the worst typhus epidemics in history. 1816 was the year Frankenstein was written. It was also the year Turner painted his fiery sunsets. All of these things are linked to global climate change—something we are quite aware of now, but that was utterly mysterious to people in the nineteenth century, who concocted all sorts of reasons for such an ungenial season.
Making use of a wealth of source material and employing a compelling narrative approach featuring peasants and royalty, politicians, writers, and scientists, The Year Without Summer by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman examines not only the climate change engendered by this event, but also its effects on politics, the economy, the arts, and social structures.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780312676452
|
Book
Rain
By Barnett, Cynthia
Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science - the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains - with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River.It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey's mopes and Kurt Cobain's grunge. Rain is also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume. Now, after thousands of years spent praying for rain or worshiping it; burning witches at the stake to stop rain or sacrificing small children to bring it; mocking rain with irrigated agriculture and cities built in floodplains; even trying to blast rain out of the sky with mortars meant for war, humanity has finally managed to change the rain. Only not in ways we intended. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes increasingly severe storms and drought, Barnett shows rain to be a unifying force in a fractured world. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.From the Hardcover edition.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780804137096
|
Print book
Annals of the Former World
By Mcphee, John A
The Pulitzer Prize-winning view of the continent, across the fortieth parallel and down through 4.6 billion yearsTwenty years ago, when John McPhee began his journeys back and forth across the United States, he planned to describe a cross section of North America at about the fortieth parallel and, in the process, come to an understanding not only of the science but of the style of the geologists he traveled with. The structure of the book never changed, but its breadth caused him to complete it in stages, under the overall title Annals of the Former World.Like the terrain it covers, Annals of the Former World tells a multilayered tale, and the reader may choose one of many paths through it. As clearly and succinctly written as it is profoundly informed, this is our finest popular survey of geology and a masterpiece of modern nonfiction.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780374518738
|
Paperback
Basin and Range
By Mcphee, John
The first of John McPhees works in his series on geology and geologists, Basin and Range is a book of journeys through ancient terrains, always in juxtaposition with travels in the modern world -- a history of vanished landscapes, enhanced by the histories of people who bring them to light. The title refers to the physiographic province of the United States that reaches from eastern Utah to eastern California, a silent world of austere beauty, of hundreds of discrete high mountain ranges that are green with junipers and often white with snow. The terrain becomes the setting for a lyrical evocation of the science of geology, with important digressions into the plate-tectonics revolution and the history of the geologic time scale.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780374516901
|
Paperback
The Rammed Earth House
By Easton, David
The Rammed Earth House is an eye-opening example of how the most dramatic innovations in home design and construction frequently have their origins in the distant past. By rediscovering the most ancient of all building materials --earth--forward-thinking homebuilders can now create structures that set new standards for beauty, durability, and efficient use of natural resources.
Rammed earth construction is a step forward into a sustainable future, when homes will combine pleasing aesthetics and intense practicality with a powerful sense of place. Rammed earth homes are built entirely on-site, using basic elements--earth, water, and a little cement. The solid masonry walls permit design flexibility while providing year-round comfort and minimal use of energy. The builder and resident of a rammed earth house will experience the deep satisfaction of creating permanence in a world dominated by the disposable.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781933392370
|
Book
Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Masonry & Stonework
By Corporation, Black & Decker
No projects offer more aesthetic or financial satisfaction than DIY masonry and stonework projects. Homeowners can routinely save thousands of dollars in labor costs by buying and installing materials that are now readily available for routine purchase. This book includes traditional techniques for laying concrete adapted to the special needs of ordinary homeowners, but also features cutting edge materials and techniques, such as tumbled concrete pavers, acid-etching for colored concrete slabs, and important green paving options, such as rain-garden arroyos and permeable pavers. Several cutting edge projects are included, such as polished concrete countertops and stamped concrete walkways. A complete outdoor kitchen project, ideal for a patio, is also included.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781589235205
|
Paperback
Bricklaying
By Cartwright, Peter
* The ultimate guide to bricklaying for beginner through professional
* Step-by-step instructions throughout
* Techniques and trade skills: damp-proof courses, cavity brickwork, block-laying, arches, windows, fireplaces and more
* Complete projects for brick kitchens, outdoor barbeques, steps, and spiral design
* All measurements featured in metric and imperial (U.S.) standards
Publisher: n/a
|
71392394
|
Book
The Hand-Sculpted House
By Evans, Ianto
Are you ready for the Cob Cottage? This is a building method so old and so simple that it has been all but forgotten in the rush to synthetics. A cob cottage,cobb, however, might be the ultimate expression of ecological design, a structure so attuned to its surroundings that its creators refer to it as "an ecstatic house."
The authors build a house the way others create a natural garden. They use the oldest, most available materials imaginable - earth, clay, sand, straw, and water - and blend them to redefine the future (and past) of building. Cob (the word comes from an Old English root, meaning "lump") is a mixture of non-toxic, recyclable, and often free materials. Building with cob requires no forms, no cement, and no machinery of any kind. Builders actually sculpt their structures by hand.
Building with earth is nothing new to America; the oldest structures on the continent were built with adobe bricks. Adobe, however, has been geographically limited to the Southwest. The limits of cob are defined only by the builder's imagination.
Cob offers answers regarding our role in Nature, family and society, about why we feel the ways that we do, about what's missing in our lives. Cob comes as a revelation, a key to a saner world.
Cob has been a traditional building process for millennia in Europe, even in rainy and windy climates like the British Isles, where many cob buildings still serve as family homes after hundreds of years. The technique is newly arrived to the Americas, and, as with so many social trends, the early adopters are in the Pacific Northwest.
Cob houses (or cottages, since they are always efficiently small by American construction standards) are not only compatible with their surroundings, they ARE their surroundings, literally rising up from the earth. They are full of light, energy-efficient, and cozy, with curved walls and built-in, whimsical touches. They are delightful. They are ecstatic.
The Hand-Sculpted House is theoretical and philosophical, but intensely practical as well. You will get all the how-to information to undertake a cob building project. As the modern world rediscovers the importance of living in sustainable harmony with the environment, this book is a bible of radical simplicity.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781890132347
|
Book
Sunset Landscaping with Stone
By Huber, Jeanne
Another always-popular volume in Sunsets line of outdoor building books, Landscaping with Stone is a fundamental resource for realizing the potential of virtually any garden. Thats because stone is resilient, organic, and colorfulits versatility is legendary. This essential book includes:
- Photo galleries feature updated approaches to enhance gardens with stone, from traditional to contemporary
- Detailed step-by-step instructions for projects including paths, walls, and water features
- Helpful lists identify appropriate plants for specific situations, such as when creating gravel or stepping-stone paths
- "Trade Secrets" and "Design Tips" give professional hints on using stones most effectively to enhance your garden
Publisher: n/a
|
9780376034786
|
Book
Simple Stonescaping
By Raines, Phillip
It's the best beginner's book on stonescaping ever - a simple guide to projects novices can handle. There's guidance on developing a layout, drawing a plan, choosing tools, mixing mortar, jointing, excavating, providing drainage, and aesthetics. Pictures present magnificent stones, from granite to marble to quartzite.
Publisher: n/a
|
1402706111
|
Book
Rock Gardening
By Tychonievich, Joseph
Rediscover a classic garden technique!
Rock gardening - the art of growing alpines and other miniature plants in the company of rocks in order to recreate the look of a rugged mountaintop - has been surging in popularity. Time and space constraints, chronic drought in the American West, and a trend toward architectural plants are just a few of the reasons for the increased interest. Rock Gardening brings this traditional style to a new generation of gardeners. It includes a survey of gorgeous rock gardens from around the world, the techniques and methods specific to creating and maintaining a rock garden, and profiles of the top 50 rock garden plants.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781604695878
|
Book
The Spirit of Stone
By Johnsen, Jan
Stone in a garden adds an authentic feeling that nothing else can match. Whether it is a low wall, a standing stone, a dry stream or a walk, stone enlivens a space and adds a sense of permanence. Until recently, stone was an overlooked element in the landscape, but now we are rediscovering this most ancient of materials. Isamu Noguchi, the artist and landscape designer, summed it up nicely, "Any gardener will tell you that it is the rocks that make a garden. They call them the 'bones' of the garden."
In The Spirit of Stone, award-winning landscape designer Jan Johnsen presents a richly photographed, authoritative guide to creative and practical uses for stone and gravel in the landscape: rock gardens, steps, drainage areas, paths, garden walls, benches, and more. Stone's durability, coupled with its sustainable uses, make it especially appealing to homeowners looking for innovative ideas for conserving water and keeping it on site. A special chapter is devoted to plants and stones to showcase how these two complement each other beautifully in a garden.
The Spirit of Stone is an essential idea book for anyone looking to add dimension to their outdoor space - the down-to-earth tips and descriptive photos will inspire designers,gardeners, stonemasons, and homeowners alike.
Miracle Planet
By Brown, Bruce
Based on a PBS television series of the same name, this book is a compendium of facts and theories about all facets of earth science. The authors have assembled a tremendous amount of information on geology, paleontology, meteorology, geography, and more for the general reader. They lead off with theories about the formation of the earth and the first appearance of life on the planet; in subsequent chapters, they examine human interaction with the environment and its subsequent destruction. Written in a breezy, readable style and filled with photographs, this book will entertain as well as inform. This is not a work in which to seek in-depth discussion of any particular aspect of the earth sciences, but it is a good place to start.- Randy Dykhuis, OCLC, Dublin, OhioCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The Map That Changed the World
By Winchester, Simon
In 1793, a canal digger named William Smith made a startling discovery. He found that by tracing the placement of fossils, which he uncovered in his excavations, one could follow layers of rocks as they dipped and rose and fell -- clear across England and, indeed, clear across the world -- making it possible, for the first time ever, to draw a chart of the hidden underside of the earth. Determined to expose what he realized was the landscape's secret fourth dimension, Smith spent twenty-two years piecing together the fragments of this unseen universe to create an epochal and remarkably beautiful hand-painted map. But instead of receiving accolades and honors, he ended up in debtors' prison, the victim of plagiarism, and virtually homeless for ten years more. Finally, in 1831, this quiet genius -- now known as the father of modern geology -- received the Geological Society of London's highest award and King William IV offered him a lifetime pension.The Map That Changed the World is a very human tale of endurance and achievement, of one man's dedication in the face of ruin. With a keen eye and thoughtful detail, Simon Winchester unfolds the poignant sacrifice behind this world-changing discovery.
Parks and Plates
By Lillie, Robert J
Many of our national parks, monuments, and seashores were established because of their inspiring geological features -- from the geysers of Yellowstone to the granite peaks of Yosemite. In Parks and Plates, Robert J. Lillie explains the fascinating geological processes that
Krakatoa
By Winchester, Simon
The bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano -- Krakatoa. The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa -- the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster -- was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round die planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light.
The Year Without Summer
By Klingaman, William K.
Like Winchester's Krakatoa, The Year Without Summer reveals a year of dramatic global change long forgotten by history
In the tradition of Krakatoa, The World Without Us, and Guns, Germs and Steel comes a sweeping history of the year that became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death. 1816 was a remarkable year—mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern U.S. and Europe in the summer of 1816.
In the U.S., the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer led to famine, food riots, the transformation of stable communities into wandering beggars, and one of the worst typhus epidemics in history. 1816 was the year Frankenstein was written. It was also the year Turner painted his fiery sunsets. All of these things are linked to global climate change—something we are quite aware of now, but that was utterly mysterious to people in the nineteenth century, who concocted all sorts of reasons for such an ungenial season.
Making use of a wealth of source material and employing a compelling narrative approach featuring peasants and royalty, politicians, writers, and scientists, The Year Without Summer by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman examines not only the climate change engendered by this event, but also its effects on politics, the economy, the arts, and social structures.
Rain
By Barnett, Cynthia
Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science - the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains - with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River. It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey's mopes and Kurt Cobain's grunge. Rain is also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume. Now, after thousands of years spent praying for rain or worshiping it; burning witches at the stake to stop rain or sacrificing small children to bring it; mocking rain with irrigated agriculture and cities built in floodplains; even trying to blast rain out of the sky with mortars meant for war, humanity has finally managed to change the rain. Only not in ways we intended. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes increasingly severe storms and drought, Barnett shows rain to be a unifying force in a fractured world. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.From the Hardcover edition.
Annals of the Former World
By Mcphee, John A
The Pulitzer Prize-winning view of the continent, across the fortieth parallel and down through 4.6 billion yearsTwenty years ago, when John McPhee began his journeys back and forth across the United States, he planned to describe a cross section of North America at about the fortieth parallel and, in the process, come to an understanding not only of the science but of the style of the geologists he traveled with. The structure of the book never changed, but its breadth caused him to complete it in stages, under the overall title Annals of the Former World.Like the terrain it covers, Annals of the Former World tells a multilayered tale, and the reader may choose one of many paths through it. As clearly and succinctly written as it is profoundly informed, this is our finest popular survey of geology and a masterpiece of modern nonfiction.
Basin and Range
By Mcphee, John
The first of John McPhees works in his series on geology and geologists, Basin and Range is a book of journeys through ancient terrains, always in juxtaposition with travels in the modern world -- a history of vanished landscapes, enhanced by the histories of people who bring them to light. The title refers to the physiographic province of the United States that reaches from eastern Utah to eastern California, a silent world of austere beauty, of hundreds of discrete high mountain ranges that are green with junipers and often white with snow. The terrain becomes the setting for a lyrical evocation of the science of geology, with important digressions into the plate-tectonics revolution and the history of the geologic time scale.
The Rammed Earth House
By Easton, David
The Rammed Earth House is an eye-opening example of how the most dramatic innovations in home design and construction frequently have their origins in the distant past. By rediscovering the most ancient of all building materials --earth--forward-thinking homebuilders can now create structures that set new standards for beauty, durability, and efficient use of natural resources.
Rammed earth construction is a step forward into a sustainable future, when homes will combine pleasing aesthetics and intense practicality with a powerful sense of place. Rammed earth homes are built entirely on-site, using basic elements--earth, water, and a little cement. The solid masonry walls permit design flexibility while providing year-round comfort and minimal use of energy. The builder and resident of a rammed earth house will experience the deep satisfaction of creating permanence in a world dominated by the disposable.
Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Masonry & Stonework
By Corporation, Black & Decker
No projects offer more aesthetic or financial satisfaction than DIY masonry and stonework projects. Homeowners can routinely save thousands of dollars in labor costs by buying and installing materials that are now readily available for routine purchase. This book includes traditional techniques for laying concrete adapted to the special needs of ordinary homeowners, but also features cutting edge materials and techniques, such as tumbled concrete pavers, acid-etching for colored concrete slabs, and important green paving options, such as rain-garden arroyos and permeable pavers. Several cutting edge projects are included, such as polished concrete countertops and stamped concrete walkways. A complete outdoor kitchen project, ideal for a patio, is also included.
Bricklaying
By Cartwright, Peter
* The ultimate guide to bricklaying for beginner through professional
* Step-by-step instructions throughout
* Techniques and trade skills: damp-proof courses, cavity brickwork, block-laying, arches, windows, fireplaces and more
* Complete projects for brick kitchens, outdoor barbeques, steps, and spiral design
* All measurements featured in metric and imperial (U.S.) standards
The Hand-Sculpted House
By Evans, Ianto
Are you ready for the Cob Cottage? This is a building method so old and so simple that it has been all but forgotten in the rush to synthetics. A cob cottage,cobb, however, might be the ultimate expression of ecological design, a structure so attuned to its surroundings that its creators refer to it as "an ecstatic house." The authors build a house the way others create a natural garden. They use the oldest, most available materials imaginable - earth, clay, sand, straw, and water - and blend them to redefine the future (and past) of building. Cob (the word comes from an Old English root, meaning "lump") is a mixture of non-toxic, recyclable, and often free materials. Building with cob requires no forms, no cement, and no machinery of any kind. Builders actually sculpt their structures by hand. Building with earth is nothing new to America; the oldest structures on the continent were built with adobe bricks. Adobe, however, has been geographically limited to the Southwest. The limits of cob are defined only by the builder's imagination. Cob offers answers regarding our role in Nature, family and society, about why we feel the ways that we do, about what's missing in our lives. Cob comes as a revelation, a key to a saner world. Cob has been a traditional building process for millennia in Europe, even in rainy and windy climates like the British Isles, where many cob buildings still serve as family homes after hundreds of years. The technique is newly arrived to the Americas, and, as with so many social trends, the early adopters are in the Pacific Northwest. Cob houses (or cottages, since they are always efficiently small by American construction standards) are not only compatible with their surroundings, they ARE their surroundings, literally rising up from the earth. They are full of light, energy-efficient, and cozy, with curved walls and built-in, whimsical touches. They are delightful. They are ecstatic. The Hand-Sculpted House is theoretical and philosophical, but intensely practical as well. You will get all the how-to information to undertake a cob building project. As the modern world rediscovers the importance of living in sustainable harmony with the environment, this book is a bible of radical simplicity.
Sunset Landscaping with Stone
By Huber, Jeanne
Another always-popular volume in Sunsets line of outdoor building books, Landscaping with Stone is a fundamental resource for realizing the potential of virtually any garden. Thats because stone is resilient, organic, and colorfulits versatility is legendary. This essential book includes: - Photo galleries feature updated approaches to enhance gardens with stone, from traditional to contemporary
- Detailed step-by-step instructions for projects including paths, walls, and water features
- Helpful lists identify appropriate plants for specific situations, such as when creating gravel or stepping-stone paths
- "Trade Secrets" and "Design Tips" give professional hints on using stones most effectively to enhance your garden
Simple Stonescaping
By Raines, Phillip
It's the best beginner's book on stonescaping ever - a simple guide to projects novices can handle. There's guidance on developing a layout, drawing a plan, choosing tools, mixing mortar, jointing, excavating, providing drainage, and aesthetics. Pictures present magnificent stones, from granite to marble to quartzite.
Rock Gardening
By Tychonievich, Joseph
Rediscover a classic garden technique!
Rock gardening - the art of growing alpines and other miniature plants in the company of rocks in order to recreate the look of a rugged mountaintop - has been surging in popularity. Time and space constraints, chronic drought in the American West, and a trend toward architectural plants are just a few of the reasons for the increased interest. Rock Gardening brings this traditional style to a new generation of gardeners. It includes a survey of gorgeous rock gardens from around the world, the techniques and methods specific to creating and maintaining a rock garden, and profiles of the top 50 rock garden plants.
The Spirit of Stone
By Johnsen, Jan
Stone in a garden adds an authentic feeling that nothing else can match. Whether it is a low wall, a standing stone, a dry stream or a walk, stone enlivens a space and adds a sense of permanence. Until recently, stone was an overlooked element in the landscape, but now we are rediscovering this most ancient of materials. Isamu Noguchi, the artist and landscape designer, summed it up nicely, "Any gardener will tell you that it is the rocks that make a garden. They call them the 'bones' of the garden."
In The Spirit of Stone, award-winning landscape designer Jan Johnsen presents a richly photographed, authoritative guide to creative and practical uses for stone and gravel in the landscape: rock gardens, steps, drainage areas, paths, garden walls, benches, and more. Stone's durability, coupled with its sustainable uses, make it especially appealing to homeowners looking for innovative ideas for conserving water and keeping it on site. A special chapter is devoted to plants and stones to showcase how these two complement each other beautifully in a garden.
The Spirit of Stone is an essential idea book for anyone looking to add dimension to their outdoor space - the down-to-earth tips and descriptive photos will inspire designers,gardeners, stonemasons, and homeowners alike.