Creating a Garden for the Senses - Hardcover

Cox, Jeff

4.2

5 ratings by Goodreads

9781558593299: Creating a Garden for the Senses

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1558593292 ISBN 13: 9781558593299

Publisher: Abbeville Press, 1993

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Featuring gardens, flowers and plants that appeal to our sense of sight, smell, touch and hearing, this volume aims to enhance the pleasures of both gardening and visiting gardens for the reader.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Here Cox ( Plant Marriages ) considers "both the sensuous and sensual aspects of plants," hoping to "bring . . . unconscious sensory experiences into the bright light of full consciousness." Lest this sound too Freudian, what he really wants to do is to simplify, not to complicate, a gardener's pleasure, returning us to a child-like state of harmony with nature. Reasonably, the book is divided into chapters that address each sense (sight, smell, touch, sound, taste) in turn, before finally taking on "the sixth sense," meaning one that "perceives a reality beyond the material world" of plants. Under "Sound," for instance, Cox discusses wind chimes and piped-in music for garden settings, as well as the music donated by nature. Under "Scent," herbs receive a good deal of attention, and color, of course, looms large in "Sight." And, continually encouraging the development or the reawakening of an "aesthetic sense," the book prods gently with color photos. But, like his previous Plant Marriages , Cox offers more gimmick than genius, and quite a few commonplaces mixed in. "A strong and trusted intuition is a particularly great help in gardening," he notes, and, "sitting in a garden, it is not hard to believe that we and the plants are part of a greater whole." People have been saying this for centuries.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

A good deal of recent gardening literature focuses on fragrant flowers and foliage, and Cox takes the notion of scented plants a step further by including plants that appeal to each of the senses. In his opinionated guide, Cox offers unflinching advice on garden design, assisted by Jerry Pavia's gorgeous photographic images that capture tableaux of color and form. Cox explores the garden as an art form and defines plant groupings according to such elements as tactile qualities and visual balance created by shape, line, and mass. All gardeners, whether they possess small spaces or acres of land, will appreciate this offering and its tantalizing mix of aesthetic concerns, philosophical musings, and scientific theories (such as the optical effects of color). A chart lists the "sensuous qualities" of selected shrubs, trees, and flowers. Alice Joyce

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