The Less Is More Garden

Big Ideas for Designing Your Small Yard

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Pub Date 07 Feb 2018 | Archive Date 31 Mar 2018

Description

“Big ideas for your small garden.” —Garden Design

When it comes to gardens, bigger isn’t always better, and The Less Is More Garden shows you how to take advantage of every square foot of space. Designer Susan Morrison offers savvy tips to match your landscape to your lifestyle, draws on years of experience to recommend smart plants with seasonal interest, and suggests hardscape materials to personalize your space. Inspiring photographs highlight a variety of inspiring small-space designs from around the country. With The Less Is More Garden, you’ll see how limited space can mean unlimited opportunities for gorgeous garden design.
 
“Big ideas for your small garden.” —Garden Design

When it comes to gardens, bigger isn’t always better, and The Less Is More Garden shows you how to take advantage of every square foot of space...

Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781604697919
PRICE $29.95 (USD)
PAGES 256

Average rating from 20 members


Featured Reviews

This book is full of useful ideas, hints and tips for designing your garden and making the most of the space available. It is full of handy diagrams and charts as well as beautiful photos of real life examples. The author focuses a lot more on what people want from their garden than on how to make it look a certain way or fit a particular style.

My only issue with the book though is that none of the gardens in the photographs are actually small. Some of them are massive!

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I don't have a big garden so Susan's book was very helpful. Great ideas to show off plants, art and garden furniture. A garden designer herself, Susan has an eye for detail and I found many of the suggestions useful and doable.

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This garden book shows many different and unique ideas for using your front and backyard space to fit your needs. It asks questions such as, what are you doing to do in the yard, how often do you cook outside, need a play area, pet friendly, entertaining guests, and more. These make you really look at how you want to use your space. Includes garden plans and plant suggestions for all the settings. Pictures are beautiful and engaging. Lots of practical and easy to put into place ideas to make your garden work for you, not you working in it all the time.

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This book was an inspirational gardening book. Really enjoyed the hardscapes ideas and the plant combos sent me to the plant store to pick up blue fescue grass to try my hand at a burgundy / blue plant combination. Even if you have a larger garden this book works for creating smaller areas within the larger whole. The author demonstrates creative use of trees, plants, materials and colours. Exciting to see a full page showing the Japanese Maple Orange Dream's foliage in spring and summer as I have just planted one! Quick read, but a book I'll refer to a lot.

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An excellent resource to gardeners like me, with smaller yards. While other books concentrate on grandiose plans for large, expansive yards, Morrison explains how "less is more" for the more common, urban sized yard. She offers practical advice to design the smaller areas, without "busting the budget". I will be using this book extensively for a long time! Wonderful photographs and ideas!

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I enjoyed The Less is More Garden – an unpretentious writing style with personal anecdotes that made the book a pleasure to read. Whether or not you have a small garden, there is much to enjoy and to learn from in this book. Lots of tables, such as plants with colourful foliage, or, blooms, berries and scents for winter, with photos of each plant are a bonus for any keen gardener
The design template section with design sketches, explanations and many photos were superb – just sorry there weren’t more of these!
There are lots of beautiful photographs illustrating all chapters. Only one small niggle here; many of the photos appeared to be of gardens that are not small or even modest sized.

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A thoughtful and refreshing guide to smaller urban gardens. I enjoyed Morrison’s pragmatic philosophy and approach to outdoor living. As a new homeowner, I’ve been contemplating my options to redo my yard. This book made me reconsider my pinterest garden page and how it aligned with my lifestyle. Its filled with loads of design advice and page after page of beautiful outdoor areas. Highly recommend to those looking to make the most out of a small yard.

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The goal of this book is to help the homeowner design beautiful gardens for smaller spaces. Whether you're in a townhome or a freestanding home with a small yard, Morrison offers ideas for how to develop rich-looking, inviting garden spaces. The idea of carefully assessing the scale of what you can do in your space, by selecting plants, accessories/features, and especially furniture that fit the space but doesn't make the user feel, as Morrison puts it, like an adult squeezing into elementary school furniture. Morrison skillfully addresses the error of thinking that one large patio surrounded by a bit of lawn will feel larger than a number of smaller well-designed nooks or regions in your yard. She also examines planning for your year-round climate and its importance with regard to actual outdoor use. Climate should be what determines the features you elect to use in your garden. For example, do you really need a firepit in South Florida? The same space might be better served with a quiet water feature, like an urn fountain.

There's much to be learned from Morrison's suggestions. This is a useful book that helps the gardener understand the vital importance of scale in design.

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The Less Is More Garden lives up to its name of Big Ideas for Designing Your Small Yard. Susan Morrison gives the homeowner with a small yard plenty of ideas, along with questions to ponder as they consider their landscaping. Besides the tips, and ideas, there are the important aspects of focusing on the people, pets and activities in which the area will be used as well as maintenance involved. These are extremely helpful in gardening planning besides the usual region or climate of where the home garden is located.

The photographs certainly drew the eye to the lovely possibilities there are suggested. However, the charts and templates were even more helpful. This is not a definitive how-to but more of guide that ask practical questions, gives possible solutions and allows the gardener to put their own personal stamp on the area around their home. While the entire focus is on small areas which is great, those with larger yard space would also benefit from considering much that is in this book. My home is located in a rural area on several acres, but I still found the tips, suggestions, ideas and thoughts to ponder valuable.

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***** I give this Book a Five Star Review. I would recommend this Book. Thanks NetGalley.

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I requested an advanced review copy of this book because my home sits plunk in the middle of a small lot with tiny front and back yards and I was looking for ideas. Boy, did I get ideas!
This book has an incredible amount of information to take in. Ms. Morrison provides lots of design theory (and the whys behind it) as well as sample designs. She speaks to the many uses for all types of plants, containers, paving materials, etc. to provide outdoor living space that you and your family/friends will truly enjoy. I loved the many pictures, the design and planting information, the charts and diagrams, and the advice for working in small sections. This is a great book to have around for reference and/or for inspiration.
I voluntarily read an advanced review copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley and I offer my honest opinion in response.

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As the title suggests, this book is focused on making the most of a small backyard space. It's divided into eight sections and covers a good amount of information. Here is a breakdown of each chapter:

Chapter 1 -- intent (what will you be doing in the garden? when will you be outside? who will be with you?)
Chapter 2 -- design
Chapter 3 -- guidelines for specific elements (like patios, decks, pathways, stairs, etc.)
Chapter 4 -- how to make the most of a small space (through vertical gardening, diagonal gardening, lawn alternatives, focal points, etc.)
Chapter 5 -- how to engage the senses
Chapter 6 -- hardscape elements
Chapter 7 -- low maintenance plants
Chapter 8 -- how to give your garden a sense of space that connects it to whatever region you're in

If you've read a lot of gardening books, much of this info will probably be familiar to you. But author Susan Morrison has a knack for delivering advice in a positive, creative, and engaging way. I found myself excited to change up certain elements of my garden and outdoor living space.

I was especially surprised to realize that I haven't been utilizing our backyard in a way that lines up with our lifestyle. For example (and this is so embarrassingly obvious, but oh well), I watch my kids play outside basically all summer. I love to sit in the sun and relax, but our backyard chairs are uncomfortable and smushed in the corner. Why do I do that to myself? You better believe that, come spring, I'm going to move our comfy chairs out to help make our yard more functional and cozy.

I've also decided I'm going to plant something fragrant by our backyard window, so the scent will waft through the backyard and even into our living room, the most used room of our house.

Little details like that make a difference---sometimes even a really big difference. I loved the quote from Steve Aitken (editor for Fine Gardening magazine) in the preface:

When confronted with something that isn't turning out the way we'd hoped, our impulse is to add something. [And when that doesn't work,] we add something else. What we wind up with is something so full of competing flavors, colors, tchotchkes, or plants that we can't even tell what the problem is anymore.

It's true. We don't need more stuff. We just need clarified and focused intent. An honest look at our own needs coupled with a simple but clear plan can help turn a dysfunctional space (whether sparse and cold or chaotic and overgrown) into a comforting oasis. I love that.

ARC provided through Net Galley...but then I bought the book anyway.

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This book is full of ideas (both hardscaping and plantings) for small spaces, with great pictures. However, some of the pictures are of BIG gardens! Nonetheless, a great resource. And since large yards are often made up of smaller spaces (entertaining area, side yard, etc.) then this book could be used to create mini-spaces within large yards.

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This was a great resource for my little outdoor gardening space. I appreciate the insight into garden design and believe this will be a helpful book for my gardening readers.

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Written in a helpful way but pretty basic gardening information. For new gardeners this book could be quite helpful or for those who have never thought of their garden as a unified entity but just small plantings here and there.

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