BY THE BOOK

Artistic guidance for great yards

October 31, 2009 Peggy Mackenzie
TORONTO STAR

This beautiful hardcover book was purposefully reviewed in the fall as opposed to the spring. It's good to have a sense of your landscape you want to change. With the cleanup in autumn comes the opportunity to review your home outside and come up with a new or improved plan.

Torontonians already know Julie Moir Messervy's design work from the Music Garden on Queens Quay West. She collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma to interpret Johann Sebastian Bach's Suites for Unaccompanied Cello for the park.

Her work on the park proves that her artistic sensibility works wonders with her practical architecture education and her previous books always show both sides. This book is no exception. It is the perfect planning guide to a new outside life. Filled with brilliant woodland scenes, quaint hideaways, meandering paths, and voluptuous curves, your fingers will be itching all winter long to start digging your way to a new backyard.

Hundreds of photos, drawings and plans evocatively display Messervy's vision. It's easy to follow her ideas and have a sense on how to accomplish them, whether that's by doing it yourself or hiring a professional. She provides necessary tips in the margins that let the reader know how to start a vegetable garden or play with scale.

The book is divided into seven chapters: A Pleasure Ground, The Lay of the Land, Big Moves, Comfort Zones, Making It Flow, Placing the Pieces, and Sensory Pleasures. Even her chapter names evoke a vision.

Big or small, all backyards will benefit from this book and next spring let the digging begin.

Toronto Star

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