Finally, homeowners can tackle new garden designs and fix old ones with the confidence and know-how to succeed. Professional garden designer Gordon Hayward provides the tools by demonstrating the guiding principles behind his own designs: take clues from the style, materials, and proportions of existing features, particularly your house, but also garages and outbuildings, property lines, streets, walls, and walkways. Look closely at these features, and they will suggest good design.

Over sixty color photographs and over one hundred detailed watercolor sketches of Hayward's plans for his clients show how to read the clues and then design gardens that relate to their surroundings and unify entire properties. Many tricks of the trade are given, including how to make inviting, sheltering entry gardens; screen unsightly features and utilities; and reclaim narrow, shady side yards. Surefire methods for designing front, side, and backyard gardens are explained.