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PARADISE BY DESIGN

NATIVE PLANTS AND THE NEW AMERICAN LANDSCAPE

Phillips (Tracking the Vanishing Frogs, 1994) provides a lucid explanation of natural landscaping as she follows in the footsteps of one of its practitioners. The use of native plants—grasses, shrubs, trees, and flowers that predate European settlement of the Americas, species that would be found in vestigial wildlands—is gaining a firm toehold in the field of landscape architecture. It is a trend that bucks our culture's dominant gardening aesthetic: the bigger and brighter and newer and stranger, the better, and there will never ever be enough lawn. Natural landscaping builds on a distinctive regional identity, taking its cues from micro- and macro-climates, soil types and site grades and what grew there in the distant past, fashioning a place-defining wild landscape of native plants and natural terrain, complex and subtle and ecologically sensitive to habitat and biological community. Phillips narrates as Joni Janecki, a landscape architect working in California, tackles three projects: a residential job in posh Montecito, where she is given a much-coveted free rein in planning (though the project remains unstarted); a corporate job at Hewlett-Packard's main headquarters, where her plans get considerable manhandling; and a design for restoring an abused parkland in Salinas. Along the way, Phillips elaborates on the travails of landscape architects (and the four devils of money, time, taste, and client awareness), the history of the nursery industry, the place of sustainability in landscaping, and the debate surrounding ``nativism'' (particularly as it relates to Michael Pollan's controversial article ``Against Nativism''). And Phillips tracks the projects closely, detailing each move, going so far as to tell readers the fate of an asphalt parking lot on one job site, for she is broadly curious about every aspect of the landscaping process. No bones about it, Phillips is a partisan, but she makes an elegant and persuasive case for going native.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-86547-519-9

Page Count: 240

Publisher: North Point/Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

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