"A refreshing change from abstract writings about landscape architecture, Waterstained Landscapes is an illustrated essay, narrated by a fictional landscape architect, Ann Crane, who moves from Los Angeles to Colorado's Front Range. Through the imaginary Crane, author Joan Woodward argues that deriving landscape designs from the natural patterns and processes of a particular region is a key to creating distinctive, appropriate, and manageable designs.".

"Combining elements of a journal, sketchbook, notebook, and textbook, Waterstained Landscapes focuses on the Denver region and the dry West, Protagonist Crane learns that tracing the "waterstain" - water concentration and accompanying plant responses - is like reading the braille of western landscapes, a hidden text that reveals information about natural processes and human values.

The book describes the regional processes that shape these plant patterns, and goes on to explore how natural and cultural mechanisms change and affect designed and undesigned landscapes over time. Woodward takes special note of the evolution of landscape design eras, following the fate of one house as its garden changes under the influence of different styles and various owners' tastes."--BOOK JACKET.