Create a floral haven with help from a celebrated garden designer and flower lover.Jan Johnsen’s latest book, Floratopia: 110 Flower Garden Ideas for Your Yard, Patio, or Balcony showcases beautiful flower varieties and offers illustrated design ideas that will have you seeing the potential for colorful flowers, both annual and perennial, in all kinds of outdoor spaces, large or small. Essential advice—such as "Hot Weather Flower Garden Tips," "Tiny Space,...

“Gardentopia is that rare marriage of the art of landscaping and the technical knowledge of how to compose a landscape—boiled down to readily understood and easily executed actions. This book puts you in the driver’s seat and shows you how to chart the course to your own personal garden utopia.” - Margie Grace, Grace Design AssociatesAny backyard has the potential to refresh and inspire if you know what to do. Jan Johnsen’s new book, Gardentopia: Desig...

Heaven Is a Garden is about creating havens for the senses. Drawing on ancient traditions of “sacred space,” Jan Johnsen identifies the key natural elements of a garden that can give us feelings of renewal and inspiration. She shows us how we can introduce these calming, inspiring elements into our own gardens. The chapters explore “the power of place” and the surprising role that water, trees, shapes, color and sound play in transforming our state of mind. This richly illustrated...

In The Spirit of Stone, award-winning designer Jan Johnsen presents a richly photographed, authoritative guide to creative and practical uses for stone in the landscape: steps, paths, garden walls, dry streams, benches, rock gardens, driveways and more. The Spirit of Stone is an essential idea book and how-to for designers, stonemasons, builders, homeowners and DIYers.

"Bonsai art is the display of a landscape - without the landscape."?--NobuKajiwara ?This quote couldn't be truer. Growing and sculpting bonsai trees can be quite a satisfying hobby. It is a hobby however, that requires a tremendous amount of patience. When you take a simple sapling and mould it to your desire, you'll be rewarded with a beautiful piece of art you can truly be proud of!?The term bonsai literally means plant in a pot or tray planting. Bonsai however is much more than simply a...

Living in a garage, so poor she could barely feed her dog, and rapidly hitting bottom, author Barb Rogers was desperate to just try anything. She combated and overcame her situation by prayer, choosing to be happy, and improving the flow of chi in her life. And the results were nothing short of dramatic. In these three books, part of the Just Try This series, Rogers shares the simple methods that helped her triumph over incredible adversity. These books are down-to-earth and easy to use. R...

Capture the Rich Textures of Nature, Step by StepCapture nature's beauty as you never have before. Beloved artist and teacher Claudia Nice leads you on an inspired journey through the great outdoors. With paints in hand, she shares with you her best techniques for creating landscapes that come alive with richness, depth and textured detail.Open this guide and start painting right away. As you follow engaging, step-by-step demonstrations and...

Step into your inner world and connect with your essence as you create unique mandalas with various mediums and techniques. Discover how this ancient ritual can heal and transform your life. Find out why this introspective tool is used in a variety of contexts. The Mandala Way contains an illustrated, step-by-step method of making expressive and personalized art works. Suitable for everyone, this art form has excellent educational benefits.Learn a visual languageDevelop atten...

75 unique designs for attractive, efficient, environmentally friendly homes.Now available in paperback, this collection of 75 plans for small homes offers more than 500 usable blueprints and other illustrations for a variety of living spaces suitable for every environment and style, from a New England farmhouse to a sophisticated townhouse in the city to a Santa Fe ranch.The designs include site drawings, floor plans, elevation drawings, section drawings, p...

Save money, avoid costly mistakes. Written by design experts in a concise, condensed format that covers home decorating, remodeling, and staging your home for sale. Includes more than 100 designer sources that you can use. Designer secrets about color, lighting, furniture, accessories, how to work with a contractor without getting ripped off and much more.

The gardens around our homes reflect our souls to the world around us. Indeed, garden, through the beauty, quietness of the plants and flowers. Each layering of plants, and any addition of gardening elements add a new texture and picture to the garden. For me gardening has contributed to my personal growth, and thus a spiritual journey to enable me listen to the whispers of nature.The beautiful images of the garden presented here will add to serenity to a busy life. As you turn the...

This revised and updated edition of The Wabi-Sabi House recounts the history of this aesthetic philosophy and reveals ways to introduce it into your home.The ancient Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi is about appreciating simplicity and letting go of the superficial—the perfect antidote to modern consumerism and perfectionism. In 2004, author Robyn Griggs Lawrence helped popularize wabi-sabi in North America with her book The Wabi-Sabi House....