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Title: Gardens in China by Peter Valder ISBN: 0-88192-555-1 Publisher: Timber Press (OR) Pub. Date: 01 July, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The beauty of the garden
Comment: Peter Valder first became interested in GARDENS IN CHINA, from learning about famous planthunters in the 19th and early 20th centuries. His first trip, in 1980, was only as one of a small group visiting cultivars of camellia reticulata in Kunming and a famous plant collecting site, at Emei Shan. He went back to China 14 years later, on a photograph trip of wisterias.
At that point he realized three important things. First, he had a basically correct understanding of Chinese gardens, from the famous willow-pattern porcelain. The Thomas Turner design, from 1779, showed the Chinese garden as it tended to be, with water; trellis work; rocks; fancifully-shaped plants, such as the weeping willow; and buildings.
What the author went on to learn was that what was in Chinese gardens was based on specific Chinese beliefs. Two main sources for these beliefs were Daoism and Buddhism. Daoists believed in people and world as one, particularly through nature. But nature didn't have to look like nature. The Chinese didn't have the Native American respect for keeping the landscape and nature as close to how they were naturally. The Chinese in fact had no problem changing watercourses, making hills and lakes, and putting in buildings, as focal points, memorials and scenic viewpoints.
The ancient Chinese believed immortal beings flew about on the backs of cranes. These immortals supposedly lived on the islands of Fangzhang, Penglai and Yingzhou, in the eastern sea off the coast of Shandong. So islands were made in lakes, in the hopes of getting immortals to land there.
Likewise, Xiwangmu, Queen Mother of the West, supposedly lived in the Kunlun mountains. Whoever ate peaches from her beautiful orchards there lived forever. So Chinese gardens often had fake mountains.
Mountains were also among the places where the immortals lived. They were important in Daoism and Buddhism too. Daoists worshipped five mountains, as standing at the corners and center of the Chinese world. Buddhists worshipped heavenly and sacred peaks, which they called, respectively, Mounts Sumeru and Potalaka.
These fake mountains often had caves in them. This was because a beloved Chinese scholar, Tao Yuanming, was famous for telling a story about a fisherman who walked through a cave, into a utopian world. Caves could also be homes for the immortals. So caves became common in Chinese gardens.
Likewise, plants and trees were often chosen for definite reasons. One was because of what they called to mind from Chinese art, everyday life, and literature. So Chinese horse chestnut, ginkgo, juniper, pine, and thuja became traditional garden trees. Bamboo, chrysanthemum, cymbidium, marvel of peru, pine, plum, and yucca became traditional garden plants. Citrus, figs, large-flowered gardenias, and jasminum sambac became traditional potted plants.
Second, how the Chinese traditionally designed their gardens ended up, later, as common parts of Western gardening. They actually had among our earliest rock, topiary and water gardens. A brownish-yellow limestone, known as huangshi, was especially popular. Its veining called to mind the brushwork of classical Chinese paintings. The Chinese often put, among living bamboos, such unusual garden stones as fossilized tree trunks, stalactites, stalagmites, and standing pieces of fossilized wood. They often trained such vines as wisteria to grow around and over the hardened wood.
The Chinese started up training plant growth, known as topiary, much earlier than Western gardeners. They trained shrubs to grow, over a wire framework, into the shapes of birds, bridges, dolphins, dragons, fans, fishes, flower baskets, houses and square-sailed boats. They even shaped human figures, with added-on china or wooden feet, hands and heads.
In their water gardens, the Chinese often went in for what's known as landboats. Landboats, as well as Chinese dwarfed trees, were part of what later came to be known in English as potted scenery. For landboats were actually very small, but complete and detailed, landscapes left floating in garden pools.
Thirdly, Western gardening actually returned the favor. So there were long-lasting influences on Chinese gardening, especially from the United States. Chinese gardeners took up such American plants as African marigolds; cymbidium, most often as orchids; 4 o'clocks; ipomoea quamoclit; red salvias; and yucca gloriosa. In addition, devout Buddhists took to magnolia grandiflora. Its flowers were so like those of their sacred lotus.
Any reader who has followed Peter Valder's photography and writing career won't be let down. The organization is attention-keeping, the photography gorgeous, the writing clear. His book fits perfectly in between the earlier THE CHINESE GARDEN by Joseph Cho Wang and the most recent THE CHINESE GARDEN by Maggie Keswick.
Rating: 5
Summary: Simply Marvellous
Comment: Peter Valder has now established himself as one of the world's major horticultural writers with his "Gardens in China" the new companion volume to his wonderful, award winning, "Garden Plants of China". This book looks at over 200 gardens that the author has visited over a period of twenty years. It is a richly descriptive work both historically and geographically and is extremely readable, to the point that it is almost impossible to put down. The photography once again is simply stunning. Besides the famous classical gardens of Suzhou Valder gives a fascinating overview of temple courtyards , parks, cemeteries, botanical gardens and arboreta(many established since the cultural revolution) in every corner of this vast country. If you are contemplating a visit to China there could be no better preparation than reading Valder's "Gardens in China". If you are not going to China then travel there vicariously via this magnificent book. A must for every serious garden lovers bookshelf.
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Title: The Chinese Garden: History, Art and Architecture by Maggie Keswick, Charles Jencks, Alison Hardie ISBN: 0674010868 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: The Chinese Garden (Images of Asia) by Joseph Cho Wang, Joseph C. Wang ISBN: 0195875869 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Garden Plants of China by Peter Valder ISBN: 0881924709 Publisher: Timber Press (OR) Pub. Date: 01 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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Title: Chinese Architecture by Fu Xinian, Guo Daiheng, Liu Xujie, Pan Guxi, Qiao Yun, Sun Dazhang, Nancy S. Steinhardt ISBN: 0300095597 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $65.00 |
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Title: Japanese Garden Design by Marc P. Keane, Haruzo Ohashi ISBN: 0804820716 Publisher: Tuttle Publishing Pub. Date: 01 December, 1996 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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