Gardening books
Our guest reviewer Susie White takes a look at 'The Gardens of England: Treasures of the National Gardens Scheme' and finds much of interest.
RHS Growing Vegetables and Herbs
Garden writer, photographer, author and lecturer, Susie White, is our guest reviewer for this new RHS Title: 'Growing Vegetables and Herbs'.
Susie has a lifetime's gardening experience which is reflected in her well-crafted articles that appear regularly in the garden press. She lives in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.One in a series of growing guides from the RHS, this is a very practical book and one that I can imagine someone might keep in their allotment shed so that it is always handy. It feels satisfyingly chunky and a sensible size with a strong hardback cover, so that it can put up with being handled in the garden. That means that it would probably be much more used than a larger, glossier book.
I have lost count of the times I wished I had made more notes of the inspirational gardens that I have seen at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show over the last decade. The design trends, ideas and practical details which are important to focus on and the finer details of each garden are always worth noting and every year they bring new inspiration.
In 'Take Chelsea Home', Chris Young, in association with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), gives us the ideal solution to those ‘what if?’ moments, when we know we should have paid attention and probably didn't.
This inspirational sourcebook allows you to take the best of the world-famous flower show's innovation, flair, extravagance and ingenuity home with you and compensates for that lack of note taking.
Three new titles by publisher Timber Press will be of interest to readers as the gardening season finally gets off to a start for another year."Powerhouse Plants" by internationally known plantsman and award-winning writer Graham Rice will be a welcome addition to the bookshelf. Buying plants can be an expensive process and gardeners want to ensure that their money is well spent. In his latest book, "Powerhouse Plants" Graham selects 510 of the top performers for multi-season beauty and plants that truly earn their keep.
RHS Container Gardening
A wealth of useful tips and expert advice on creative container gardening for all styles of garden and container. There are tips on more than 525 species and varieties of container plants with clever ways to transform the look of your garden using everything from self-watering pots to hanging baskets.
In this reprint of her first book, Carol Klein celebrates her favourite plants and by setting aside the more conventional ways of classification and grouping plants as "plant personalities", she inspires our planting choice and our planting mood.As she comments in the introduction, since she wrote the first edition of Carol Klein’s Favourite Plants, in 2004, she has come to know intimately most of the plants included within its pages. She exhorts us to consider good natured ‘bread and butter plants’ such as the meadow cranesbill and Campanula, the wonderful Astrantias and Echinops and the Cinderella plants which shoot to stardom in a matter of weeks such as Snowdrops and Anemone.
In the Preface to ‘RHS Latin for Gardeners’ author Lorraine Harrison makes the point that ".... when confronted with the complexities of botanical Latin many highly accomplished gardeners shrug, sigh and seek solace in Shakespeare."
However, she rightly reminds us that while it is easy to understand why we fall for the “poetry and charm” of common plant names, they fail to tell us anything of the origin of a plant or important points such as colour, form and size.
I have several books dedicated to Latin plant names but none fall into the category of Lorraine Harrison’s book which is not only informative but entertaining and beautifully illustrated.
Sandy Felton finds some answers to the question we often ask ourselves, 'What Are Gardens For?" in Rory Stuart's new book.
Sandy Felton reviews a great design book for those small spaces in our life.
There are times when I have sat in my little piece of utopia and wondered what if? What if I could afford to consult a professional garden designer to do a complete make-over? What if I decided to completely change my cottage garden style for something more modern or chic? Like many contemporaries who have small suburban gardens I never get past the what if? stage.
The majority of gardeners in the UK are gardening in small suburban plots or have back-yards, where space is at a premium and uplifting ideas for a total transformation into a peaceful haven can be challenging. Which is why I applaud Ann-Marie Powell for producing such a gem of a book in 'Plans for Small Gardens'.
Just in case the sun decides to shine and you find time to sit and enjoy the fruits of your hard labours in the garden, here are a couple of newly published gardening books by Timber Press that might just make excellent companions.'The A-Z of Plant Names' by Allen J. Coombes is an excellent reference book to help you unlock the information behind the names of 4000 of the most commonly grown garden plants in Europe and North America. Allen, formerly of Hillier Gardens and now at the University Botanic Garden in Puebla, Mexico, demystifies the subject and makes plant names instantly more meaningful.
When I was a child we kept chickens in our back garden. There was no shortage of fresh eggs and we knew each chicken by name. Today, with the accent very much on organic and fresh food, keeping chickens has become popular once again.In 'Free-Range Chicken Gardens', Jessi Bloom shows us that we can keep chickens and have a beautiful garden too. This delightful and very useful book, originally written for the American market, contains just about everything you need to know about keeping chickens. Jessi takes you through the basics of starting with chickens, from how many to get and what breeds are best through to choosing chicken-friendly plants, coop design and landscaping.
Sandy Felton reviews a new book about the gardens at Holker Hall, and invites readers to enter our competition for a signed copy.
Spend even a short time with Hugh Cavendish in his garden at Holker Hall in Cumbria, and you quickly realise that you are in the company of a supreme plantsman.
One of my favourite pleasures in life is having afternoon tea. If it is served in lovely surroundings with china crockery, nice cutlery and real napkins I am even more delighted. Naturally, therefore, my interest was sparked when 'Vintage Tea Party' by Carolyn Caldicott landed on my desk. Afternoon tea has had something of a resurgence recently and we are discovering the pure pleasure of enjoying lovely sandwiches, scones and cakes with a good pot of tea. Mix-and-match crockery, bone-handled knives, lace and linen, china teapots, home baking and the wonderful Victoria sponge are all back in vogue.
It’s good to see gardening books being produced for children and with ‘Grow your own for kids!’ the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) have produced a great basic introduction for children aged between 5 and 11 years.Written by the Blue Peter Gardener, Chris Collins and Guardian writer Lia Leendertz, the book combines not only expert advice from the UK’s biggest gardening charity but also a lively and easy to follow text from one of the most popular gardening experts on children’s television. It's full of ideas and step-by-step projects ranging from growing perfect potatoes to creating a tasty tower of berries. The book offers a gentle introduction to gardening covering a wide range of topics including being a green gardener and also a section on why things go wrong – important when little gardeners might get disheartened when they find slugs nibbling their fruit and veg.
In the introduction to The Timber Press 'Encyclopedia of Flowering Shrubs', author Jim Gardiner points out that he has longed to produce a photographic reference of woody plants. He acknowledges that there are a number of publications covering woody plants with one of the most accessible being The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs, which to many is still regarded as the Bible.
There is no shortage of quintessentially British gardens many of which, in their varying degrees, convey a wonderful cross-section of our national horticultural wealth.
In 'Exploring Britain's Country Gardens', edited by Donna Wood, we are of course introduced to some of the most iconic - as one would expect in any guide to the country’s gardens - but we are also treated to some of the less well known gems.
In 'Gardening with Wild Plants', author Julian Slatcher, sets out to re-introduce to the gardening public some of the overlooked gems of the British Countryside.
Primroses, daisies, foxgloves, snowdrops and bluebells are just a few of the beautiful plants we regularly find in our gardens, however, there are many more that could be incorporated if we knew just a little more about them.
This is a handy sourcebook which divides the plants according to their natural habitats. There are almost 200 different wild plants featured along with practical information and tips on planting and growing as well as useful planting plans.
In 'Making a Garden', Matthew Wilson, produces a practical guide to help us harness ideas and techniques used in garden design to produce success in our own gardens.
He uses real case studies to demonstrate how the ideas and techniques behind them can help us avoid pitfalls when designing our own garden.
The 'RHS Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations' last published in 2008 has now been updated and revised by author Tony Lord.
There is a new clear key for symbols that indicate ideal soil and growing conditions for all the 1,000 plants included in the book.
Whether you own a large greenhouse or just a small 'lean-to' , Anne Swithinbank's new book 'The Greenhouse Gardener' will prove a valuable asset.
The author is one of Britain's best-known gardeners, broadcasters and garden writers and her writing style is not only informative but light and engaging.
February sees the release of a number of new gardening books from publishers Timber Press. With topics from Heirloom Vegetables, Small Space Container Gardening and Cactus, there is sure to be something to interest gardeners on both sides of the Atlantic.
'The Gardener’s Guide to Cactus' by Scott Calhoun introduces a tempting 'peek' into a sometimes overlooked species. It features a 100 of the most interesting and versatile North American cactus species, in a neat and easy to follow layout.
Cactus represent nearly a quarter of all succulent plant species, grow in diverse habitats and if you choose the right species, they will be tolerant of harsh conditions.
This heavyweight volume by Michael A. Dirr, combines the best from his previous treasures (Dirr's Hardy Trees & Shrubs and Dirr's Trees & Shrubs for Warm Climates) and is surely one of the definitive illustrated reference books to woody plants.Dirr is an icon in the US. He is one of the top American authorities on woody plants and the author of over 300 scientific and popular papers, articles and books. A Professor of horticulture at the University of Georgia, Dirr has received the highest honours from the American Horticultural Society.
Gardeners' at all levels are bombarded with advice from a variety of sources.
Sorting out the 'do's' and 'don'ts', calculating whether our best friend's advice about mulching is really helpful or having the confidence to trust the 'old gardener's tales' from the potting shed, is all part and parcel of everyday gardening.
If you sometimes feel bewildered by all the advice and want to sort out fact from fiction, 'Decoding Gardening Advice' by Jeff Gillman and Meleah Maynard, may be the answer. This is a good-humoured book that offers the definitive gardening do’s and don’ts and the reasons why, backed up with horticultural and botanical science.
Living quite close to the wonderful Levens Hall in Cumbria it might seem very insular if I confessed that I have not really paid much attention to creative pruning in the past. It might be fairer to say that I have not perhaps appreciated what a creative person with a good pair of clippers can achieve on what would otherwise be a boring and quite ordinary piece of box.
I think it was Tom Stuart-Smith who first awakened in me the realisation that box and hedging could be fun and what is more soothingly decorative – for example his 2010 Chelsea garden arranged established box balls into a shape giving the impression that they were much older and mature – delightful.
If you want to discover the best plants for one of the garden's most challenging problems – dry shade – 'Planting the Dry Shade Garden' by Graham Rice, will fit the bill nicely.
As Graham points out, there is no reason why dry and shady areas cannot be as attractive as the landscaping in other areas of the garden and from the outset he shows us how we can garden successfully by understanding the problem and then using techniques to take the edge off drought and poor light.
Two classic Christopher Lloyd books reprinted
From his birth in 1921 to the day he died in 2006, Christopher Lloyd lived at Great Dixter in Sussex. He developed one of Britain's great iconic gardens, published numerous books, many of which are now garden classics, and contributed to 42 years' worth of regular weekly articles in publications such as Country Life and the Guardian.
That publishers Frances Lincoln Ltd., should reprint a revised and updated edition of two of his most popular books is testament in itself to Lloyd's enduring popularity as a garden writer. 'The Adventurous Gardener' and 'Foliage Plants' both have an introduction by Fergus Garrett, head gardener at Great Dixter, who describes Lloyd as someone who 'flouted conventions and poked fun at correctness.'
'Our Plot'
"…… allotments are not only about growing food. They are a way of life."
With several Chelsea and RHS gold medals under his belt and a reputation as one of Britain's top garden designers, some might be surprised that Cleve West’s first foray into the book world is a book about allotments. Those who know him well will expect nothing less, for Cleve is not only a talented garden designer he is also a true allotmenteer.
His passion for his allotment - and its three sheds - shines brightly through 'Our Plot', a book which is full of practical commonsense. He points out that working an allotment needs perseverance and warns that a large proportion of new allotment tenants give up within a year. His aim is to help people realise that an allotment is a commitment – or as he puts it: "It's like keeping a pet, only without all the vet's bills."
Choosing what you consider the twenty finest gardens that best represent the full and diverse range of garden styles, climates and situations from across the UK is no easy task. In a country where nearly 4000 gardens open their gates to the public, at least once a year, the criteria for 'Great' may be a bit subjective.
In the introduction to 'Great Gardens of Britain', Helena Attlee makes the point that the task is not for the 'faint hearted' and that it is only by looking at gardens across the length and breadth of Britain that one can realise how diverse the 'English' style of gardening really is.
Sandy Felton takes a look at Andrew Wilson's new book on colour.
As someone who has struggled with the concept of colour in the garden for decades, I found Andrew Wilson's 'Contemporary Colour in the Garden' inviting. That my little plot is 'colourful' is in no way due to my expertise of using colour as the 'powerful tool' Wilson suggests in the gardener's armour. Any useful colour combinations in my garden appear more by accident than design, influenced perhaps by Gertrude Jekyll yes, but competent, it is not. So, I eagerly embarked on the first chapter to see if I could be suitably enlightened.
I like the way Wilson structures this book. He charts the use of colour in the garden from Gertrude Jekyll's colour-sequenced borders to Conceptualism and describes how today's plastics, resins and painted surfaces can deliver a brilliance and saturation of colour that is successful in the right situation.
When the first edition of The English Roses, by David Austin, was published it became an essential reference for every rose lover and gardener. It secured pride of place in my reference collection and I have consulted it frequently.
David Austin has been breeding and hybridizing roses for more than 60 years achieving international recognition as the creator of the English Roses, an entirely new style of rose with unique beauty. His work in creating even better and more pleasing varieties is ongoing and so it is timely that this second revised edition has been produced.
The revised edition includes some of our old favourites from the first edition but also more than 20 new rose varieties, all with detailed descriptions and excellent photography.
More Articles...
- RHS How to grow plants in pots
- RHS – How to Garden
- 'Great Gardens of Italy' by Monty Don
- Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City, by Dan Pearson
- RHS How Does My Garden Grow?
- ‘Growing Food’ by Anna Pavord
- Close – Landscape Design and Land Art in Scotland
- A-Z of Flower Portraits
- 'Italy’s Private Gardens – An Inside View'
- Dear Christo – Memories of Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter
Page 1 of 2
