American Garden Design

Book excerpt: Garden design in America has a rich and exciting history, and this first-ever volume traces the evolution of garden design in this country through the seminal ideas and writings of twenty-three influential designers from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. American Garden Design examines the changing theories and social styles that helped to shape American gardens. The excerpts in American Garden Design were selected by the eminent designer Diane Kostial McGuire, and they are arranged chronologically from the late eighteenth century to the present. This organization provides an overview of landscape design thinking from formal styles of such gardens as Monticello and those of the Victorian era to the eclectic approaches of the present.