Barbara Pleasant. Garden Stone: Creative Landscaping with Plants and Stone. Storey. 2002.

Gardeners may consider rocks in their landscape a blessing or a curse. Garden Stone: Creative Landscaping with Plants and Stone shows you many ways to turn rocks you may have into a wonderful garden feature. There are projects for hot, sunny locations, and quiet woodland spots. You'll find directions for creating your own rock wall or a garden ornament.

The author did an outstanding job of blending written text with photographs and other illustrations. Her writing style is enough to make you want to try every project in the book. You can tell she really enjoys gardening from the way she writes about the various projects and the plants suggested for that project. The line drawings and written instructions for creating the results pictured in the colored photographs increases the likelihood that you will successfully create some rock features of your own. When appropriate, terms used are explained and extra pointers are provided.

Recommendation

Most gardeners will find a project suitable for their landscape in this book. In my opinion, it is the best of the books' I've read on using rocks in the landscape. I wish I had owned this book when I began creating my own perennial and shrub borders.