Setting the Scene

In Setting the Scene, leading landscape and garden designer and Chelsea Gold medallist George Carter distils a career of over thirty years in garden design into pithy lessons that will be invaluable to any garden designer (or garden owner).

George Carter's work has been inspired by the gardens of the past, from the formality of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the informal landscapes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He cites the landscape designer Humphry Repton (1752-1818) as his greatest influence.

Setting the Scene shows us how successful gardens are designed and made. Following the pattern set by Repton in his famous Red Books, George Carter takes us through the process in meticulous detail, leading us from the initial site plan to the glory of the finished garden, and illustrating each chapter with photographs and plans of gardens from his own portfolio.

These include Albemarle House in Charlottesville, Virginia, a cottage in Pennsylvania, farmhouses in Mirmande in south-eastern France, Los Moritos in Trujillo, The Garden of Surprises in Burghley, Lincolnshire, Penshurst Place, Kent, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, his own garden at Silverstone Farm, Norfolk, and the garden of the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace.