The garden design firm of SMI Landscape Architecture is known for its estate masterplanning, its public gardens and streetscapes, and its thoughtful private gardens for clients across the United States and in the Bahamas. The firm's philosophy incorporates a 'botanical garden' approach with exotic planning and elements of classical European design to create beautiful, usable spaces, and it is also known for its preservation and restoration of old landscapes. As Jorge Sánchez puts it in the Prologue, 'Most of us tend to look at garden books for their pictures. In this one I would you to show you why; why the picture pictures came about. It is all part of why we came about. Gardens do not just happen. They are creations.' This book examines three of the firm's recent private gardens in great detail, two in Florida and one in Scarsdale, New York. Practical information about the design approach an details of the planting are combined with Sánchez's account of the process behind each garden, his relationship with the client and the reasons for his decisions. Through the narrative - often personal, always descriptive, always detailed - a picture builds up of his approach to each set of circumstances. The first project is in Miami, a family garden with a surprisingly untropical design for its southern location.