Edited by Jorge Sánchez

The garden design firm SMI Landscape Architecture is known for its estate masterplanning, its public gardens and streetscapes, and its thoughtful private gardens for clients across the United States, particularly in Florida, and in the Bahamas. SMI’s philosophy combines a ‘botanic garden’ approach with exotic planting and elements of classical European design, and the firm is also noted for its preservation and restoration of old landscapes. This volume presents 15 new gardens, never before published in any book, that demonstrate the range of the company’s work. Each client has different requirements, and so each garden turns out differently – but each displays SMI’s hallmarks of lush planting, luxurious garden ‘rooms’ and immaculate hardscaping. As Jorge Sánchez explains in the Preface, ‘This book shows how not one individual but many make a firm successful.’ For each garden, practical information about the design approach and details of the planting are combined with an account of the process, the firm’s relationship with the client and the reasons for the design decisions. Through the narrative – often personal, always descriptive, always detailed – a picture builds up of the approach to each set of circumstances. Many of the projects are in Palm Beach, where a boom in the building of new houses and their attached estates in the early 20th century has left a legacy of stunning, if sometimes neglected, homes and landscapes ripe for restoration. SMI also works in more northerly states, where there is an opportunity to create gardens with an entirely different palette of plants. This elegant book will appeal to garden lovers everywhere, as well as to design aficionados seeking a deeper understanding of the creative process behind making a garden.

amazon: UK · USA · Canada · France · Germany · Japan · bookshop.org.uk · bookshop.org

Find your local bookstore on Google OR indiebound (US/CAN)

Area to search (opens in new tab)Search