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Professional Landscape Designer Proves That Good Design Is Approachable, Affordable and Attainable

In HOME OUTSIDE: Creating the Landscape You Love (The Taunton Press, $30.00), Julie Moir Messervy demystifies the art of residential landscape design. By introducing an easy, tangible yet intuitive process, she helps homeowners turn their property into a place of enjoyment -- their own "home outside."

With the downturn in the economy, most people are staying put, unable to move houses or take vacations anymore. This is a built-in opportunity to improve the homes we already have. Different than house renovations, what's great about landscaping is that a lot of the work can be done by the homeowner. While landscape contractors do major grading and drainage project, or masons build retaining walls, laying a simple brick patio, building a basic grape arbor, or planting small trees and shrubs are well within the average homeowner's reach.

HOME OUTSIDE is a user-friendly guide to composing a unique and personal landscape, from gardening plants to outdoor structures. Clear and concise writing, together with beautiful photographs, before and after images, diagrams, green tips and case studies, Julie Messervy shows you how.

Home is not just the four walls of a house, but encompasses the whole property. It's a pleasure ground; a personal sanctuary; a zone of comfort in the world. With some planning (with or without a landscape professional's help) and some sweat equity, one can turn the land around the house into a home outside. Getting back to nature on a little piece of Mother Earth, it's possible to bring sustenance, beauty, and meaning back into the landscape.

Julie Moir Messervy brings a designer's perspective to guide readers through a comprehensive six-step process:

• Step 1-Property Assessment
• Step 2-Site Selection
• Step 3-Organizational Strategies
• Step 4-Choosing a Layout
• Step 5-Aesthetic Arrangement
• Step 6-Unifying Theme or "Big Idea"

Research shows that a well-designed landscape can increase quality of life and improve property values. It has been shown that children are healthier, happier and better able to get along with others when they have regular opportunities for free and unstructured play outdoors. Realtors acknowledge that a house with "curb appeal" in the front and a well-composed private landscape in the back can add as much as 20 percent to the value of a home.