Garden Legacy accords the French-American tradition of landscape design and horticultural study its rightful place in transatlantic cultural history. French settlers in New Orleans adapted garden prototypes from the era of Louis XIV to the more abundant plant life yet smaller-scale gardens of colonial Louisiana. This sumptuously illustrated survey showcases period maps and prints from The Historic New Orleans Collection and other North American and European institutions; the remarkable nineteenth-century plan-book collection of the New Orleans Notarial Archives; and contemporary memoirs of early Louisiana settlers and naturalists.

Mary Louise Mossy Christovich and Roulhac Bunkley Toledano, both graduates of Newcomb College, are active preservationists and authors. Garden Legacy is their eighth collaboration.