Most gardens begin with the same temptation. You look out at tired grass, a leaning fence and a patio that catches the sun for twenty minutes a day, and you want to fill a trolley with whatever is flowering and start digging holes. This book asks you to wait a little, look first, and then build a garden that suits the way you actually live.
It follows the order in which the work is best done: reading the plot, designing, drawing a plan to scale, costing, checking permissions, building safely, and only then planting. The hard landscaping comes before the borders because it is messy, and nobody wants a skip lorry reversing over new perennials. Throughout, you learn why as well as what, so the falls, depths and spacings make sense when you are out there with a spirit level.
What you will find inside
. How to read sun, shade, wind, frost pockets, soil, drainage and slope, with a site inventory to copy
. Finding buried pipes and cables before you dig, including 811 in the United States and Before You Dig Australia
. Design principles in plain English, the main garden styles, and how to draw a plan to scale and test it on the ground with a hosepipe and canes
. Budgets, spreading the work over several years, and how to find, check and pay professionals
. Permissions, boundaries and neighbours, from England's front-garden paving rule and party walls to council, building department and homeowners' association approval
. Building safely: lifting, cut-off saws, wet cement and the silica dust that cutting paving throws up
. Step-by-step guidance on patios, paths, gravel, edging, decks, garden steps, raised beds, fence posts and a lined pond
. Permeable driveways, rain gardens, garden lighting and electrics, and keeping water safe for children
. Trees, shrubs, hedges, climbers, borders and lawns for structure, with nesting-bird law and pet-poison listings
. Planting and aftercare, a month-by-month calendar, troubleshooting tables and a glossary
Who it suits
Beginners come first, but experienced gardeners planning a bigger change will find the detail they need. Timings are given for the UK and similar temperate climates, with notes for North America, Australia and New Zealand and a rough six-month shift for the Southern Hemisphere. Measurements are metric first with imperial in brackets, plant hardiness uses both RHS ratings and USDA zones, and every legal point names the country or region it applies to.
An honest approach
The book is plain about which jobs belong with professionals, such as new electrical circuits, retaining walls that hold back real weight of soil, and work near large trees. It is plain about time, too: a group of shrubs takes three to five years to look the way you drew it, and spreading the work and the cost over that period is sensible anyway.
So put the trolley back for now, take a mug outside, and start looking.