Best Landscaping Books You’ll Ever Need For A Beautiful Garden 2018

Best Landscaping Books You’ll Ever Need For A Beautiful Garden

Introduction

Of course, this piece of writing will give you the name of the best landscaping books. But for those who still have no idea why we need such things, here’s the thing. Even for gardeners with many years of experience, landscaping still seems to be an intimidating project.

And if gardening is all about considering what plant to grow and how to take care of them, landscaping is one level more complicated. It demands the elaborate and thoughtful calculation, estimation, and visualization to decide where and how the elements will appear.

And as landscaping can be a daunting and overwhelming task, most gardeners rely on the readable and understandable consultancy from landscaping experts.

There is a wide range of products available on the market today, and below I have reviewed 5 of the very best options.

**Below, you will find more detailed reviews, but you can also click the links above to see current prices and read customer reviews on Amazon.

What’s often included in a landscaping book? 

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Concepts and ideas

Thousands of landscaping books will give you millions of different concepts and ideas for your outdoor space. And landscaping does not restrict to the arrangement of flora and fauna; it also has so many things to do with the space, land forms, bodies of water, weather and lighting condition.

Consultancy on style

A landscaping book the best choice for those who are struggling with defining their garden’s style. And if you don’t want to hire a landscape architect, which probably costs you an arm and a leg, then reading a landscaping book is an excellent alternative.

The best landscaping books normally come with many suggestions for different concepts of a garden. Whether you want it to be vintage, urban, or fairy tale – like, the books provide many options to make your garden just like the way you want.

DIY projects

Inside every landscaping books, readers are exposed to seemingly countless DIY projects to improve their outdoor space. The projects are diverse in landscaping styles, budget, and the amount of space needed. These books provide the highly actionable projects depending on different taste.

Tutorials and Instructions

What you may like the most from a landscaping book are the step-by-step tutorials and instructions. In other words, they have the complete blueprint for upgrading the landscape of your garden, making the task more enjoyable to get involved.

And in comparison with video tutorials, many gardeners admitted that they actually prefer the readable tutorials. With a landscaping book, they can easily investigate the project and retrieve the information.

Tips, tricks, and techniques

The experts usually have their own ways to optimize the outcome. And they show them all in the books; there are always so many things for you to learn and get the inspiration from. Instead of figuring out by yourself, learning from the book makes your landscaping tasks easier and less frustrating.

What’s the point of having a landscaping book?

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Reduce the trials and errors

Why trying and failing when you have the whole book tell you what to do. As we all know that landscaping is not only about arranging things. More importantly, it is the art of arranging things to be in a beautiful whole.

And even an expert will take months or even years to create a concept for the garden. With a landscaping book, you don’t have to crack your brain trying to figure out what to do. The book may have everything you need inside.

Provide better visualization for each concept and idea

How many times have you thought of a gorgeous concept for your garden yet don’t really know how to visualize it? Well, it’s fair to say that having a landscaping book will solve the problem. Best landscaping books often come with many visual materials for you to consult. And more than often we find ourselves immersed in the aesthetic pictures in the book.

Save time, effort and money for landscaping

As a matter of fact, landscaping will be easier when you have a landscaping book to show you the way. Getting the ideas from the books, you know what you need to have in your hands and how to accomplish the project. In other words, having such books is a cost-effective solution to prepare for your landscaping tasks.

Improve garden maintenance skills

Even when you cannot make your garden looks the same as what’s in the book, you will learn something for yourself. The work of a gardener is a lot more than just planting and growing. You will also have a lot of things to research. Thus, reading is necessary for acquiring and accumulating the gardening skills.

How to choose a landscaping book that best fits your garden?

Know what you need

Don’t jump into buying any book if you don’t know what you want for your garden. Are you looking for a low-maintenance, edible, or living landscape? Depending on your specific purpose of landscaping, you can go with a book that best fits your need.

Search for the titles that match your need

Go online and search for what you want. Read the title, preface, and abstract (if accessible) of the book to determine if it’s really the one you are looking for. Most of the landscaping book tell you its concept right in its title.

Searching online should be the most efficient way to look for a garden book. But if you want to wander around the book streets and throw yourself in the gardening and landscaping category alleys in a bookstore, it’d be totally fine.

Consult the book reviews

If the book is highly reputable, there should be thousands of reviews about it on the Internet. Reading the book reviews will facilitate your buying decision. It also offers more information about the book, giving you an unbiased perspective of the information provided in it.

Product Reviews – The Best Landscaping Books

The concept of landscaping with healthy and fresh foods has been gaining its popularity since the 1990s. And even though this concept is younger than others, the interest in edible landscaping has swept the nation.

More and more people are trying to turn their backyard into a natural resource to grow clean and delicious herbs. However, Edible Landscaping has a lot more things to do than showing how you can plant and grow the edibles in your garden.

More importantly, this book, with the expertise of its author, is a good source to learn how to make your garden look beautiful and mouthwatering at the same time. Rosalind Creasy, the author of the book, and many other books focusing on edible landscaping is an inspiring garden and food writer, photographer and landscape designer.

With decades of research and experience in landscaping, she has inspired thousands of gardeners to create a home landscape that yields beautiful veggies, fruits, nuts, and berries.


Pros

  • Abundance of inspiring photographs

  • Modern design in glorious full-color format

  • Comprehensive how-to information

  • Promote healthy eating

  • Vivid examples or many real gardens


Cons

  • Some people say the format is hard to follow

  • Some content sections are repetitive

Many people often associate the new edition with “a few more info and a new price”. However, Step-By-Step Landscaping is an entirely different story. This book, with the 2nd edition, thrived to be one of the best-sellers in landscaping category.

Inside this book, you will find so many stunning photographs, and of course, dozens of complete step-by-step projects. It even includes the estimations on time, cost, materials, and skill level to accomplish each project.

For many newbie gardeners, this book can be a great help. The instructions are highly actionable and easy-to-follow. And there is seemingly everything you’ll ever need to landscape your garden with.

Patios, fireplaces, fences, walls, edgings, water gardens, anything, Step-by-Step Landscaping will show you the way. It also provides many inspiring ideas for the styles and concept of a garden, which you can consult and apply to your own outdoor space.


Pros

  • Detailed how-to projects

  • Many stunning illustrations and examples

  • Inclusion of full-color plan encyclopedia

  • Diversity of gardening and landscaping projects

  • Newbie-friendly


Cons

  • Some projects do not go into details

  • Magazine layout, which can be quite overwhelming for reading

Lawn Gone! is an essential guide for those gardeners preferring a low-water and easy-care landscaping method. The book is full of know-hows, ideas, and picture for a lawn that focuses the affordable environmental costs of maintenance.

Specifically, Lawn Gone! covers all the options for alternative lawns, ground covering plants, artificial turf, ornamental grasses, shrubs, and perennials. You will also find the projects for creating low-cost patios and paths for your garden.

It’s fair to say that Lawn Gone! is a book that takes a new approach to landscaping. It offers many ways to design, plant and maintain a gorgeous and functional landscape as an alternative to a standard lawn.

In other words, Lawn Gone! provides many benefits for less watering, no mowing and money saving. For both newbies and oldies, this book can change gardeners’ attitude toward home landscaping.


Pros

  • Inclusion of sustainable landscaping practices

  • Many recommendations for alternatives

  • Innovative ideas and concepts

  • Highly actionable projects

  • Easy-care, low-water, no-mow, and money-saving


Cons

  • Lack of illustrations and photos

  • Not quite a long book

Sunset Magazines has published many books on gardening and landscaping. But when considering the comprehensiveness of the content, the Sunset Western Garden Book of Landscaping seems even to dominate the best-selling The New Sunset Garden Book.

This book is suitable for any modern garden owner that is looking for a professional landscaping method. It includes many reliable expert techniques from the Western Garden brand. And with the DIY projects, the book can make a modern garden look and function better.

The Sunset Western Garden Book of Landscaping can be a good source of consultancy for those readers seeking to renovate the existing garden or install a new one. The tips, guidelines, and instructions are practical enough to follow.


Pros

  • Expert tips and tricks

  • Extensive photo showcasing

  • Creative uses for major plant groups

  • Professional layout

  • Fresh ideas on creating a modern garden


Cons

  • Most photos are actually taken from the magazine

  • Some projects are not easy to follow

The title everything, this book will be an ultimate guide for boosting your garden’s value with the DIY projects. It addresses many affordable ways of landscaping an outdoor space while the results may even go beyond the expectation.

Big Impact Landscaping – 28 DIY Projects covers the projects that can offer more shades, spacious feeling, fire features and manageable paintings into the yards. Inside the books, readers are free to choose from 28 unique projects with step-by-step instructions and vivid illustrations.

For those who want to make the most out of their outdoor space, this book is a good choice. It helps to expand the living space and allows for more time enjoying outdoor space of the house. On many online book review pages, this book, while still being a young book, dominates the ranking with its highly practical concept.


Pros

  • Highly practical and actionable projects

  • Explanations in detail

  • Concise and understandable content

  • Simple yet high readable layout

  • Cover almost all aspect of garden landscaping

Cons

  • Quite short

  • Some projects need many materials

Choosing the Best Landscaping Books for Your Garden

As landscaping your outdoor space can be overwhelming, consulting the ideas, concepts, and projects from a landscaping book can help you along the way. While there are thousands of landscaping books on today’s market, opt for one that best fits your gout and budget.

The above recommendations for the best landscaping books hopefully make your buying decision a lot easier. But if you insist on forcing me to finalize on one only, I’ll definitely go for the Step-by-Step Landscaping – Better Homes and Gardens Gardening – 2nd Edition.

The reason is simple; it’s comprehensive and easy-to-follow. Especially for the newbies, this book is a huge bonus. Everything inside this book is highly actionable and easy to understand. I believe it’s a high-value book with great affordability.

However, whichever book you may fall for, I believe it’s a wise choice. Edible Landscaping – Innovative, Step-by-Step Landscaping – Newbie-friendly, Lawn Gone! – Sustainable, Sunset Western Garden Book – Professional, and Big Impact Landscaping – Highly practical.

James G. Craig
 

James G. Craig is a gardening enthusiast who splits his spare time between growing vegetables, preening his flower gardens, and blogging about his experiences at the Gardener Corner.

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