My wife watches HBO's The Gilded Age. I do not.

I, on the other hand, love gardens, while she is ambivalent about them (although she does appreciate the flowers when they're in bloom).

I fall into the target audience of Jana Milbocker's Gardens of the Gilded Age: Lavish Landscapes from America's Golden Era more than she does, I think (although my own gardens, let's be honest, are more a celebration of nature untamed, which flies in the face of these artfully designed, heavily manicured settings).

A garden designer, Milbocker has previously written a series of travel books for "The Garden Tourist," focusing on New England, the Mid-Atlantic region, and Florida, so one suspects she knows a thing or two about gardens. In Gardens of the Gilded Age, she looks at 30 scenic and historic gardens along the East Coast, from New England to Florida, all of which flourished a century or more ago and have since been restored and are open to the public.

Before getting into the meat of the subject -- the gardens themselves -- Milbocker gives readers a brief overview of the Gilded Age, a period in U.S. history typically regarded as running from the late 1870s into the late 1890s (although Milbocker defines it from the 1870s to 1930). It was an era of rapid economic growth ... for some, since the wealth of the elite was made from the labors of the poor. The early years of the Gilded Age overlapped with the Victorian period in England, and it was marked in the United States by the appearance of wealthy capitalists who made their millions in industries such as oil, steel, and rail.

As European architecture influenced American construction, so did the design of lavish European gardens; Milbocker takes a few pages to explain the key attributes of Italian, French and English garden styles -- each of which found its proponents across the Atlantic, where the wealthy were eager to find new ways to display their riches -- and the birth of landscape architecture as an American industry. She also discusses the features that typified the gardens in question: the use of natural settings, coupled with dramatic entrance drives, garden rooms, the "great lawn," allies and parterres, specimen trees and rose gardens, exotic plants, terraces, summerhouses and pavilions, conservatories, pergolas and trellises, fountains and other water features, decorative ornaments, grottoes, woodland walkways and wild garden areas, as well as the typical forms of "grand entertaining," such as garden parties, tableaux vivants, recreational lawn games and masques.

Of course, gardening purists may balk a bit at the concept on principle, since this type of expansive landscaping -- while undeniably beautiful -- is responsible for bringing countless nonnative, often invasive species of plants into the United States ... causing innumerable problems that gardeners, landscapers, and wildlife enthusiasts are still battling today. (Public service reminder: Plant native!)

Milbocker approaches her topic from a more cerebral angle, putting the gardens in a historical context that stands today as a reminder of a long-ago age.

The gardens of the Gilded Age remain among the most eloquent expressions of America's coming of age -- a time when wealth and imagination combined to shape landscapes of astonishing artistry. Inspired by the villas of Italy, the chateaus of France, and the manor houses of England, these estates transformed the American landscape. Yet beneath their grandeur lay something more enduring: a belief that art and nature, joined in harmony, could ennoble daily life.

The visionaries of the Gilded Age -- architects, landscape designers, plantsmen, and devoted gardeners -- created living works of art that reflected not only their patrons' fortunes but also a new national identity. Their gardens celebrated progress and beauty, technology and tradition, individuality and refinement.

Prepare then for a guided tour of select gardens, from Vermont's Shelburne Farms to The Ringling, created by circus showman John Ringling in Sarasota, Florida. Along the way you'll visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts; Edith Wharton's Berkshires retreat, the Mount, in Lenox, Massachusetts; Rosecliff in Newport, Rhode Island; the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York; and, my personal favorite (in part due to proximity and personal familiarity), Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

With each location, Milbocker introduces readers to the people who owned and created the gardens, the details, uses and peculiarities of each, the notable features one can see there, and how each came into the public purview. You'll meet luminaries such as Elizabeth Osgood Vanderbilt Webb, Robert Todd Lincoln, Edith Wharton, Frederick W. Vanderbilt, Frederick and Louise Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Gifford Pinchot, Pierre S. and Alice du Pont, Alfred and Jessie Ball du Pont, George Washington Vanderbilt, and John and Mable Ringling. But she doesn't devote all of her attention on the wealthy owners; she also discusses the designers, landscape architects and head gardeners who designed and maintained the opulent settings.

Their stories are interesting, and they are brief. Milbocker devotes a limited number of pages to text, filling the book instead with as many photographs as she can cram into more than 250 pages. The photos, most of which are also by Milbocker, are gorgeous, colorful and highly detailed. (The exceptions are a handful of historical reproductions that were taken during the gardens' heyday.)

Gardens of the Gilded Age is perfect for anyone who loves flowers, artful landscaping, tales of the rich and famous, and spectacular photography.