The ultimate garden design book: a visual delight covering all aspects of working and living in your garden with stunning photographs of gardens from around the world. The contemporary garden carries a profound connection both to the environment and to the range of activities—relaxing, entertaining, working—that characterize today's lifestyle. A collaboration between a distinguished style setter and a noted garden designer, Outdoors presents the principles of imaginative and innovative landscape design, providing readers with useful knowledge and also with inspiration from diverse sources: history, media, fashion, architecture. Thematic chapters present a wide variety of successful gardens developed for specific purposes. Formal urban gardens on rooftops are explored, as are free-form rural landscapes, backyards devised to encourage children's imaginations, and spaces planned primarily for al fresco entertaining. Extensively illustrated case studies demonstrate inventive design on a grand scale as well as the creative detailing that sets one garden apart from another. In these sections, professionally designed gardens are explored methodically to reveal techniques behind planning and layout, planting choices, intended uses, and relation to the larger landscape. A special focus on conservation philosophies addresses wildlife, recycling, and water-wise gardening. Also included are a step-by-step guide to planning a garden, advice on selecting and working with a garden designer, and an extensive catalog of plants, with scientific names, foliage and bloom descriptions, and planting suggestions. The authors engage in a lively dialogue, discussing their personal insight into the early and main influences on their work, how garden design has evolved, its current place in design as a whole, and the journey that it will take throughout the century. Their very different styles provide readers with both practical knowledge and confidence to seek inspiration for their gardens.