Botanical eye candy

We have another luscious book full of gorgeous pictures of truly impossible gardens. Gardens in Perspective, by Jerry Harpur, looks at gardens as art and architecture. He presents dozens of professionally-designed gardens, and analyzes their use of form, texture and color. The pictures range from the thoughtful structure of Japanese gardens to free-form washes of color in English cottage gardens to sculpted lawns and magnificent vistas. Fountains, bridges, pergolas, walkways, fences, and statuary: the accents in these gardens were all carefully selected and artfully placed by the designers, most of whom date from recent years, although some of the gardens were designed in the 18th and 19th centuries. There is not a garden in this book that I would not love to wander through, even the minimalist designs (and I don't generally like minimalism). There is even an entire chapter devoted to the idea of gardens as forms of art, with examples from such well-known names as Dale Chihuly, James Gibbs, and Nek Chand. I personally was inspired by the Bloedel moss garden on Bainbridge Island. Moss gardening? Hey, my lawn's halfway there already.