The Spirited Garden: Creative Private Retreats

Photographs by Doreen Wynja, Contributions by Lorene Edwards Forkner

A private view of intensely creative residential gardens, lovingly designed and tended by the plant-obsessed owners themselves. Hundreds of inspiring photographs show home gardeners how to successfully inject elements of their own personality—as well as plants in unique combinations—into their own yards.

A mix of high plant/horticultural knowledge and a love of artistically repurposed everyday materials creating unique features will strike a chord with all those who dream of perking up their own gardens. Doreen sought out the most original gardens to feature those that use cleverly repurposed industrial and found materials: handmade archways of gnarled branches or hand-welded fences, mixed with unique sculptures and structures. Text and deep captions full of plant IDs highlight unusual or remarkable collections of flora and foliage that will inspire readers to re-create or come up with their own planting designs and combinations.

About The Author

Doreen Wynja has been photographing plants and gardens for over thirty years and has been the principal photographer for Monrovia Nursery since 2004. Her work has been published in numerous books including The Tapestry Garden (Timber Press, 2018), Succulents (TI Inc. Books, 2017), and the recent The Healthy Garden (Abrams Books, 2021), and in magazines like Garden Design, Fine Gardening, Landscape Architecture, the American Gardener, and Marin Magazine. She makes her home in Oregon’s wine country.

Lorene Edwards Forkner has been the weekly gardening columnist for the Seattle Times for nearly fifteen years and is the author of several gardening books including Color In and Out of the Garden (Abrams, 2022), The Beginner’s Guide to Growing Great Vegetables (Timber Press, 2021), and Now Is the Time for Trees (with the Arbor Day Foundation, 2022). She also contributes regularly to the popular gardening blog GardenRant. She lives and gardens in West Seattle.

Publish Date: April 01, 2025
Format: Hardcover
Category: Gardening - Garden Design
Publisher: Rizzoli
Trim Size: 11 x 9-1/4
Pages: 256
US Price: $50.00
CDN Price: $67.50
ISBN: 978-0-8478-4787-7

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Reviews

"In The Spirited Garden:Creative Private Retreats (Rizzoli USA, 2025) by garden photographer Doreen L. Wynja, written with Lorene Edwards Forkner, you'll find 16 gardens lovingly created by their owners throughout the Pacific Northwest.
There's an essay that accompanies each entry, explaining the garden's history and its theme. Favorite plants are also listed, and of course there are gorgeous photographs of each that will inspire any gardener, no matter if you live in a different party of the country.
As Wynja says in the preface to the book, "These gardens are about the people behind them, their journeys, and how their passions inspired me to use my lens to share their soulful, yet often humble, stories with the world...these gardens are very personal reflections of their creators, every one of them invested with heart and soul. This is garden-making expressed by that inner drive or need, that visceral, almost primal urge to be part of nature that at times can be an amazing, sensual experience."
The photos you'll see in this book, along with the stories that go with them, are an essential part of the art of gardening." -- Garden Design

"Designers say that the most interesting homes are the ones that reflect the personalities of the people who live there. That extends to the home’s exterior, asserts this new title by photographer Doreen Wynja and writer Lorene Edwards Forkner, which features creative residential gardens, lovingly designed and tended by the plant-obsessed owners themselves. Inspiring photographs show home gardeners how to successfully inject elements of their own personality — as well as plants in unique combinations — into their yards, with a mix of plants and projects. 'A mix of high plant/horticultural knowledge and a love of artistically repurposed everyday materials creating unique features will strike a chord with all those who dream of perking up their own gardens,' asserts the title’s press release. Featured are highly original spaces with cleverly repurposed industrial and found materials, handmade archways of gnarled branches or hand-welded fences, mixed with unique sculptures and structures and a wide range of flora and foliage sure to inspire gardeners of all skill levels and styles." — DETROIT NEWS