Announcing Our New Book: ‘Gardenista: The Low-Impact Garden’

We are excited to announce that our newest book, Gardenista: The Low-Impact Garden: A Guide to Creating Sustainable Outdoor Spaces, will be arriving in bookstores October 14 and is available for pre-order now. A companion volume to Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home, it is at once edifying and ravishing to look at, the result of longtime Gardenista writer Kendra Wilson and acclaimed photographer Caitlin Atkinson’s travels around North America and Canada, as well as Australia and the UK. As a guide for future gardening, it is a show-and-tell of sustainable design and innovative ideas, articulated by the most original thinkers in the garden world today.

In The Low-Impact Garden, we visit a dozen exquisite private landscapes both urban and rural. We also explore what goes into making a brilliant front yard, summer cottage garden, stylish indoor-outdoor space, eco-conscious pool, lush green roof, and more. We do some demystifying as well of the fundamentals that make a garden—grass, native plants, trees and shrubs, soil, and water—before an excursion into “The Gardenista 50,” a compilation of our favorite attractive, made-to-last garden equipment that is both vintage and future-vintage.

We are so very proud of the book—it’s filled with gorgeous inspiration and actionable tips—and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on a copy. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek (and be sure to scroll to the end for pre-order details.)

A Preview

Above: The first garden in the book, and the first one we visited, is a family backyard in Austin, Texas. It’s managed as a small prairie, but there is also room for a plunge pool, vegetable patch, chickens, and a couple of chic rocking chairs (made of recycled plastic) on the porch.
Above: We stopped by a small garden in Hackney, London, to learn how the architect-owner collaborated with a talented horticulturalist from the beginning to create a harmony of materials both hard and soft.
Above: We sought expert advice from five trailblazers on the subjects of grass and lawns, trees and shrubs, soil, water, as well as native plants. Ernesto Alvarado propagates locally indigenous plants in Southern California for restoration projects, as part of Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation District (above).
Low-Impact Garden Spread Above: At this office garden in LA’s Chinatown, water conservation is not just an imperative but a good look. Three water storage tanks, holding 1,500 gallons each, are up front in the design, along with an inviting pond just outside the office windows. With 25 sycamores of various sizes, it’s a cool and lightly shaded workspace that will not collapse during periods of drought.
Low-Impact Garden Spread Above: “The Gardenista 50” is 34 pages of personal favorites that combine utility with style.
Above: Joining like-minded people to effect incremental changes is one way of having agency in the future of your own surroundings. We visited Test Plot in Elysian Park, Los Angeles, which was set up by Jenny Jones of design group Terremoto (above), with the idea of restoring pockets of native planting to worn-out public spaces.