Garden Monographs

Between 1914 and 1950, Ellen Shipman (1869–1950) designed more than 600 gardens in the United States, from Long Island's Gold Coast to the state of Washington. Her secluded, lush formal gardens attracted a clientele that included Fords, Edisons, Astors, and du Ponts. Shipman’s imaginative approach merged elements of the Colonial Revival and Arts and Crafts movements with a unique planting style enlivened by Impressionistic washes of color.In Ellen Shipman and the American Garden author Judith B. Tankard describes Shipman’s remarkable life and discusses her major works, including the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida; Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens in Akron, Ohio; Longue Vue House and Gardens in New Orleans, and Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University. Richly illustrated with plans and photographs, the book explores Shipman’s ability to create intimate spaces through dense plantings, evocative water features, and classical ornament. Tankard also examines Shipman's unusual life, which was enriched by her years in the artists' colony of Cornish, New Hampshire, and her association with the architect Charles A. Platt. Shipman was notable for establishing a thriving New York City practice and mentoring women in the profession. Many of the assistants she trained in her all-female office went on to become successful designers in other parts of the country.Describes Shipman's remarkable life and fifty of her major works, including the Stan Hywet Gardens in Akron, Ohio; Longue Vue Gardens in New Orleans; and Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University. Richly illustrated, this expanded edition reveals her ability to combine plants for dramatic impact and create spaces of the utmost intimacy.

Few landscape designers are more admired than Belgium's Jacques Wirtz (born 1924), as evidenced by the huge success of The Wirtz Gardens, which surveyed 57 private and public gardens designed by Wirtz, many in collaboration with his two sons, Martin and Peter, in locations around the world.

Shunmyo Masuno, Japan's leading garden designer, is at once Japan's most highly acclaimed landscape architect and an 18th-generation Zen Buddhist priest, presiding over daily ceremonies at the Kenkoji Temple in Yokohama. He is celebrated for his unique ability to blend strikingly contemporary elements with the traditional design vernacular.

If there is, indeed, nothing lovelier than a tree, Connecticut-based artist Bryan Nash Gill shows us why. Creating large-scale relief prints from the cross sections of trees, the artist reveals the sublime power locked inside their arboreal rings. Gill creates patterns not only of great beauty but also year-by-year records of the life and times of fallen or damaged logs.