The author gives ideas for overall planning and design and outlines steps for removing the grass, enriching the soil and planting new flowers and shrubs. 75 case-study front gardens of all types are featured including cottage gardens, town and city centre gardens, suburban, minimalist and wildlife gardens.

Reviews

This substantial book takes a refreshing look at front gardens, an aspect of gardening that hasn't been covered well enough in recent years. Primeau, a well-known Canadian garden writer and television host, tells how she began her own front garden and then introduces us to over 70 other gardens in a variety of styles and settings. She conveys perfectly the spirit of each gardener as she describes his or her yard, challenges, successes, and neighborhood relations. Filled with practical ideas, Primeau's encouraging text is liberally supplemented by lush photos from veteran photographer Leyerle, who has his own front garden. Brief introductory chapters discuss the history and environmental costs of traditional lawns. Though most of the gardens featured are in the northern zones, this book will be valuable for all gardeners for its unique focus, innovative ideas, and design tips. It nicely complements Jeni Webber's Taunton's Front Yard Idea Book, which is organized by specific design challenges and tasks rather than by garden styles. Highly recommended for all public libraries. [Garden Book Club main selection.]-Bonnie Poquette, Shorewood P.L., WI Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Primeau, founding editor of Canadian Gardening magazine, posits that a perfect lawn may not always be a good thing, arguing that well-manicured lawns are high-maintenance, chemical-dependent water guzzlers; she would be happy to see them all replaced by the flower gardens so often relegated to the back yards of urban and suburban houses. Starting with the luxuriant display of flowers, foliage plants, and shrubs in her own front yard in Toronto, she discusses more than 70 front yard gardens, most of them in Canada but some in Texas, Arizona, California and Wisconsin. She divides these front yard gardens into eight types-cottage, small city, opulent, minimalist, fusion (some grass allowed), natural, neighborhood and secret-and shows in text and photographs how they were designed, how they reflect the personalities of their owners, and what plants were used. There can be obstacles to such gardens in cities and suburbs-neighbors' objections, local regulations, overhead and underground wires, bad drainage, and hard surfaces-and she describes how many people have overcome these problems. Unfortunately, Primeau doesn't include among the many splendid photographs in the book any that show how one of these colorful gardens would stand out in the context of a block where all the other houses are fronted with carpets of grass. But this is a small matter. The book is handsome, informative and amusingly written, and it should serve as an inspiration to those who are tired of old-fashioned lawns. 240 color photographs. Garden Book Club and Country Home & Garden Book Club selection. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Full of interesting ideas on ways to take a different approach to an often blah and boring space.--Sonia Day"Toronto Star" (05/17/2003)