BOOK REVIEWS

The Impatient
Gardener

Gay Search
Quadrille, distributed by Reed
$NZ64.95

THIS is by far the best garden design book to hit my desk in months. It is full of fantastic ideas - even for gardeners who are prepared to wait more than five minutes to create the garden of their dreams. It is innovative, original and inspiring, and features a number of previously unseen gardens (quite a coup considering the proliferation of British garden design books on the market).

There's no denying that we do live in an age of instant gratification, so The Impatient Gardener sets out to offer a "host of stylish solutions to satisfy our desire for an instant transformation - quietly underpinned with good design, practicality and sound horticulture". In fact, there's every chance that after reading this book, even the most impatient gardener will find themselves hooked by the gardening bug.

It shows how to choose the fastest-growing plants or the flowers with the most colour and impact, how to create an instant potted jungle on a balcony, transform a drab backyard with hip, modern containers and vivid paint effects, build a romantic rustic arbour, liven up tired concrete slabs with colourful stencilling or divide your lawn with a bamboo screen.

The projects are bright, modern and sophisticated, without being sterile or overly minimalist, so they suit urban and rural landscapes.

Gay Search is one of Britain's best-known and most popular television gardeners and authors, with a host of best-selling books to her name. I'm sure The Impatient Gardener will quickly join that list.

Weekend Gardener, Issue 99, May 23-June 5, 2002, Page 28

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH