Non-Fiction Books

This book describes how to create a residential landscape plan drawing for presentation. Clearly written and highly illustrative, it takes advantage of tips and techniques that many designers have learned over the years. It serves as a resource for ideas, illustrates the use of symbols and textures, and also includes a section on the use of computer software in landscape drawing. Topics include presentation graphics, tools for accurate plan drawing, line drawing, good lettering, symbol drawing and symbol category descriptions, defining the ground plane (turf, hardscapes, mulch, and groundcover), plan drawing, color techniques, section-elevation drawing, and computer graphics and landscape drawing software. For residential landscape designers and architects.

This highly illustrative and affordable book adequately covers practical points of the design process in a simple step-by-step format. This format is concise, readily illustrated to facilitate learning and, most importantly, can be easily applied in the landscape design industry. The book focuses on residential design, although many of the concepts and steps can be applied to commercial projects as well. As each chapter represents a step in the design process, illustrations, photos, and software imaging visually aid the book concepts to further simplify learning and provide the reader with the skills to begin a successful landscape design career. Each chapter represents a step in the design process: Finding work and interviewing clients; Taking measurements and drawing site plan; Inventory and analysis of the site; Study of the useful, or functional, aspects of landscape; Organizing the ground plane and developing a functional design; Study of the components of visual interest, balance, connection and flow; Landscape design based on concept plan using generic materials; Plants and Hardscapes; Putting together the final plan that specifies all material in design; Presentation of the design to client. Other topics include Estimation; Computer Automated Design; Butterfly Gardening; Repelling Deer; and Xeriscaping. For landscape designers.

I write books of fiction. This is not one of them. Some minor details have been altered and names changed. At some point, you might think I'm making things up. Some of them I don’t believe and I saw it happen. This is a story about crisis. It’s about resolution and life prevailing. It’s about adoption. This is not a step-by-step guide on how to turn lemons into lemonade. I’m not an expert in crisis management or adoption. There was plenty of the luck that made it all happen. This is just one story. It happens to be true.