A presentation of specific landscape problems and solutions. Valerie Strong includes the excavations of her own ponds and her creation of three award-winning gardens. The work seeks to direct the novice gardener and confirm the habits of those who are committed to working with nature.

Through colorful, personal vignettes, landscape designer Valerie Strong presents and solves specific landscaping problems. In commenting on her natural surroundings, even empty lots and roadsides, Strong examines the neglected infrastructure of landscape design -- the growers, carpenters, stone masons, landscapers, and labor force -- with sympathy and humor, lifting the paper plans to philosophical observations of gardening and life.