Guest Author - Connie Krochmal
The text of “Desert Gardens” is by Gary Lyons, a renowned desert garden expert, while the photos are by Melba Levick. This was published by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
Though you wouldn’t know it from the title, this book is really about California desert gardens. It offers a lush, in-depth, intimate look at eighteen different gardens, public and private, located between Santa Barbara and San Diego, California. These include Lyons own garden in Burbank and the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, considered to be the most important desert garden in the world.
This book celebrates the ravishing beauty of desert plants, and shows their unique sculptural charm at its very best in idyllic garden settings. All different styles of gardens are profiled, including the very modernist Cactus Garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
The book opens with a wonderful introduction to the desert garden in southern California. It provides an engrossing history of cacti and succulent gardens in the area, and their origins.
Each garden is profiled in exquisite detail. Take the cactus garden at the Getty Center, for example. It features full page color photos of the gardens and plants, and a thoroughly interesting account of how this garden came into existence. All of the gardens at the Center were designed to complement the ultra-modern museum, and this one is no exception.
Some of the other gardens featured in the book include the Los Angeles City Zoo, the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, and the Living Desert Wildlife and Animal Park in Palm Desert.
The appendix contains a list of the gardens and their addresses, and the times they are open for public viewing. The bibliography is very extensive indeed, and features many titles that will be helpful to cacti and succulent lovers.
Lyons is recognized internationally as a desert garden designer, scholar, and conservationist. He is former curator of the Desert Garden and Desert Plant Collection at the Huntington.
Levick is a widely acclaimed photographer whose work has been showcased in over thirty different books.
With the lush photography and all, one might take this to be a coffee-table book. But that isn’t an accurate category for this title. For desert gardeners, it can become a source of inspiration. It presents wonderful ideas on how desert plants can be combined to create drought-resistant landscapes. In a time when water restrictions are increasingly common, the book lets readers know that desert gardens are among the most beautiful in the world. And that is no small accomplishment. In addition, cacti and succulent lovers in cold climates will learn much and enjoy the beautiful gardens and plants even if they can’t grow these plants outdoors.
