LISA NEWSOM

A veranda is the bridge between your private life and the public world. {…} We can’t all have the grand gardens {of} these pages, but we can all pick -- or buy -- a little posy and put it in a vase to enjoy.

That’s exactly how I came to this collection of photo spreads pulled from the pages of Veranda Magazine -- a beginning gardener (despite my middle age) looking forward to a lush visual tour and maybe some inspiration that I could pull from these magnificent properties and scale to my modest space.

I did enjoy the visuals -- a beautiful book, sturdily bound, with smooth pages and a pleasing layout. Each of the several-dozen 6- to 10-page spreads begins with a page of background text about the property’s location (mostly North America and western Europe), the owners’ desires and landscape architect’s philosophy, followed by pages of photos in beautiful composition. There’s a photograph of Constance Spry rose (p165) so close-up I can sense its aroma and cool succulence; a photograph of a garden’s impressionist reflection in a pool (p109) that’s as striking as Monet; and then there’s Monet’s actual Giverny (pp176-83), the most colorful spread in a book that's dominated by green.

As for inspiration, there were fewer tangible takeaways than I’d hoped. I did notice that I respond to height in a garden -- it makes me feel small and calm. When I leafed through the book a second time, browsing rather than reading closely as I’d done before, I found I noticed shape, texture, color and flow much more. So I guess time will tell what the book has begun percolating in me.

(Review based on a copy of the book provided by the publisher.)… (meer)