Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The American Meadow Garden by John Greenlee :: Fine Gardening, July 11, 2010


I couldn't wait to get my hot little hands on The American Meadow Garden: Creating a Natural Alternative to the Traditional Lawn (Timber Press) written by grass and meadow madman John Greenlee, and seductively photographed by Saxon Holt. The book promised tools for my landscape architect's bag of tricks-philosophical reassurance, design inspiration, a new palette of plants, how-to details.

I just read it. It delivered.
Trade In Your Old Lawn...
You know I'm no fan of traditional lawns. They're stultifyingly boring and often serve no useful purpose-anybody seen the neighborhood kids playing in the front yard lately? They consume too much stuff and foul our precious nest. NASA photos put the collective national lawn at upward of 30 million acres. We can get by with a lot less.

John Greenlee is a dynamo of energy and passion when it comes to ornamental grasses. I won't take up space with his bio. It's all in the book, starting with John's childhood memories of "the field", the only wild space in his SoCal cookie-cutter neighborhood.

John doesn't insist that everyone plow up their existing landscapes and blanket the continent with meadows, but he does make a compelling argument for meadow gardens in more landscapes.

More about this book...

1 comment:

antigonum cajan said...

I am certain that most people including the environmentalists from the monitor, will not get rid of their lawns, palms, or hedges, they go hand in hand in Puerto Rico.

As a consequence of ignorance, complacency and total indifference or understanding of biodiversity within Flora/Fauna and the sterility of the whole lawn culture, particularly in enemy number one: GOLF.