The Water Garden Encyclopedia

The Ultimate Guide to Designing, Constructing, Planting and Maintaining Garden Ponds and Water Features

Whether it's a simple pond, an imaginative waterfall, or a lavish fountain, the water garden is fast-becoming one of the most popular and exciting backyard features.

Water weaves an exciting strand into the tapestry of any garden. A calm pool mirrors the sky and surrounding trees. Fountains, streams and waterfalls introduce movement and the relaxing sound of splashing water.

The Water Garden Encyclopedia opens with a section that explains how to get started and covers the basic principles of siting, finding the right equipment, and calculating sizes and capacities. The contents are then divided into six main sections:

• Water gardening in containers
• Formal ponds and water gardens
• Natural water gardens
• Waterfalls and fountains
• Imaginative use of pond features and decorations
• Pond plants and cultivation
  

Each section includes step-by-step illustrations and design ideas to spark the reader's imagination.

The Water Garden Encyclopedia provides all the expert guidance that's needed -- for beginner and experienced gardener alike.

• Lavishly illustrated and comprehensive
• The ultimate guide to designing, constructing, planting, and maintaining garden pools and water features
• Packed with tips, instructions, and photographs that guide the gardener through each stage
  

Editorial Reviews

Combining comprehensive text and superb photographs, Swindells's (Natural Water Gardens) newest offers a host of ideas for creating and maintaining many types of water gardens, from small containers with fountains to re-creations of natural landscape settings. The most ambitious projects will be beyond the amateur gardener, but the design ideas and the photographs of actual gardens that illustrate these ideas are so enticing that even novices may be tempted to try. The simpler projects-pools with miniature plants in pots, fountains in large ornamental jars, troughs with pygmy water lilies and dwarf rushes-are well within the reach of beginners. More ambitious gardeners may be inspired to create ponds, waterfalls, wildlife pools, water meadows, bogs, brooks, streams, even lakes. Instructions for making each type of garden are given through a combination of text and photographs that clearly illustrate each step in the process, from choosing and marking out the site to finishing the project with suitable aquatic plants. Accompanying each design idea are lists of water-loving plants suitable for that type of garden-including water lilies, reeds and rushes, bog plants, and floating and submerged aquatics-and there are chapters on how to buy, plant, fertilize, divide, propagate and care for these plants. This beautifully illustrated volume may feel more like a coffee-table book than an encyclopedia, but it covers its subject in depth. (Mar.) Forecast: Packed with 400 color photos, and listed as Book-of-the-Month Club and Garden Book Club selections, this nicely priced volume will likely find its way into many a gardener's hands. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

About The Author:

Philip Swindells is a water gardening specialist with extensive experience in growing aquatic plants in many parts of the world. He trained at the University of Cambridge Botanic Garden, eventually becoming curator of the renowned Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens, Harrogate. The author of many publications on water gardening, he is the former editor of the Water Garden Journal of the International Waterlily Society.