Sir Terence Conran has been an icon of design for decades—commencing with his Habitat chain of home design stores in Britain, The Conran shops, the House Book, the Kitchen Book, the Essential Garden Book and more.
In his latest book, Outdoors, the Garden Design Book for the Twenty-First Century, co-authored with noted Irish landscape designer Diarmuid Gavin, Conran presents a canvas brush-stroked with innovative and interesting garden design ideas. Organized around themes of gardens rural, natural, suburban, urban and edible, the book also presents sections focused on entertaining, relaxation, family and children. A fairly interesting introductory conversation between the two authors unpeels, onion-like, their philosophies on where the design of gardens is going in the next decades.
Lush photographs fill nearly half the space, illustrating ideas both novel and inventive, and traditional: rusted steel retaining walls; druidic lawn mounds; cactus spirals; intricate topiary, classic English borders; tawny waving meadows; and gorgeous wild woodland spaces.
Broadly illustrated case studies set forth imaginative design, underscored by the creative details that distinguish one garden from another. In these sections, gardens designed by pros are reviewed systematically to expose techniques behind planning and layout, plant selection, and relationship to the surrounding landscape. Some concentration on “green” values addresses water-use, composting, recycling, and fauna.
A large and lavish coffee table tome rather than a practical how-to guide, Outdoors is one of those books to dreamily leaf through, searching for the one germ of an idea to jump off a page that just might inspire something right for your garden. You might even get some ideas for ‘creating a garden mood’ (see this month's feature article).