Authors Mary Louise Mossy Christovich and Roulhac Bunkley Toledano will sign copies of their eighth collaboration, Garden Legacy, at Garden District Book Shop, 2727 Prytania Street, on Tuesday, April 18, at 6 p.m. 

Recently published by The Historic New Orleans Collection, “Garden Legacy” chronicles the changing tastes and styles of exterior domestic spaces in New Orleans, paying particular attention to the Crescent City’s legacy of French-American landscape design. The authors’ research draws from the stunning visuals and fascinating data found in the New Orleans Notarial Archive’s collection of 19th-century plan books, as well as period maps and prints from THNOC and other North American and European institutions. It also includes details discovered in memoirs written by early Louisiana settlers and naturalists. 

Preserved as official records of property sales, the plan books provide more than depictions of properties and their surrounding gardens, while also showing great proficiency and creativity. “Garden Legacy” is the first comprehensive look at these drawings done by discrete artists with distinctive styles. Profiles of nearly 80 individual properties—from the French Quarter to the old Creole neighborhoods downriver, from back-of-town and Bayou St. John to the newer upriver faubourgs—reveal both continuities and compelling differences in cultural ambitions and garden aesthetics.

A foreword by S. Frederick Starr, noted preservationist and owner of the city’s only surviving antebellum riverfront plantation house, places the book and its authors within a vital line of New Orleans preservation efforts. 

The book, which retails for $49.95, will be available for purchase at the event.