Mid century landscaping

Sunset books from that period are a great source of design ideas. I may have a couple of duplicates if you are interested.

A copy of "Landscape for Living" or "Home Landscapes" by Garrett Eckbo is also a good source of ideas. At least one of them is currently available in a reprint and you should be able to find them at a library.

There is a book entitled "Private Lanndscapes" that is fairly recent. Great pictures of Southern California mid-ccentury gardens. Really beautiful stuff and either intimidating or inspiring.

Dwell magazine has had a few gardens in recent issues.

There are a few sources online as well. Barry Brisco has a great site of his house:

http://www.totheweb.com/eichler/

There are a few other Eichler owners who have site that feature theor yard. It is worth a web search.

There have been a few Eichlers on HGTV - at least two of them have been front yard remodels.

Hope this helps a bit. I have been researching this subject for the past year getting ready to start on my yard. I have found that interviewing Landscape Architects for the job has also been a good source of ideas.

Thanks for all the helpful info. I do know this coming Saturday, Sept.24th at 5PM PT there is a HGTV program showing a landscaping job done on a backyard of a mid century home. I saw a picture on their website and it looks great. I will also check out the other books you mentioned.

Thanks again.

Dana

I second the recommendation on any Garrett Eckbo book - he is considered the godfather of all Modernist landscape. but his book might be too academic.

I HIGHLY recommend trying to find old Sunset Magazine specialty design books from the mid 1960s on ebay or garage sales, etc. I have a stack of the them, from the Cliff May book - to Garden Ornament book and more... They have provided unbelievable inspiration for me.

Also look at more general books that focus on architecture, but include pics of landscaping - a couple that come to mind are:

Palm Springs Weekend
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0811828042/ll-20

Modernism Rediscovered
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3822864153/ll-20

don't forget Thomas Church as his work with Eichler is well documented. Gardens are for People is a great book. Doug Baylas was another well published mcm landscape architect. Look for garden, entry way, patio, landscape books by SUNSET on ebay.

Ditto on all of the above plus Better Homes and Gardens "Landscape Planning" is a must--lots of color photos unlike the early editions of the Sunset books. A good source for it and the Sunset books is abebooks.com. I've found a lot of the Sunset books here much cheaper than on ebay.

Beware! There's a guy on ebay who's making a killing on those old Sunset books by not specifically stating the title, publisher or showing a photo of the cover. He drops names like Eckbo, Eichler, Church, etc and shows photos scanned from the books. He makes them sound like major architectural works rather than the yardsale Sunset books they are. Fools pay up to $30 dollars rather than pick them up on abebooks for $5 or $10.

By the way, one of the best Sunset books is the Sunset Patio Book.

I can second the Better Homes and Gardens "Landscape Planning" book. It was buried under a pile of Sunset books and it was great finding it again. Great stuff and excellent color photos.

In addition to the previous suggestions, I recommend checking out Homefront in the Garden on BBC America and books by its host, Diarmuid Gavin. Very cool modern garden design.

Other books include The Modern Garden by Jane Brown, The Minimalist Garden by Christopher Bradley-Hole, Portfolio of Contemporary Gardens by Stephen Woodhams and the best, an antique book, Beautiful Homes and Gardens in California by Weinskamp. It was published by Abrams.

I forgot to mention that Beautiful Homes & Gardens in California (and many other period books) can be checked out at the Sunnyvale library as it's hard to find for sale.

Private Landscapes: Modernist Gardens in Southern California, by Pamela Burton is also excellent. Wonderful color photos of mid-century modern homes!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1568984022/qid=1096561925/...

Neutra and A. Quincy Jones employed many Japanese design principles into there landscapes of the homes they designed. Japanese garden design was quite popular in the 1950s and 60s.