Part horticultural memoir, part meditation on mental health, this volume follows the evolution of the beautiful garden Charlie Hart created from an untouched patch of meadowland in the grounds of his farmhouse in rural Essex. In the midst of grief and anxiety, his retreat into nature pulled him back from an impending breakdown, and here he celebrates the thrill of creation and the healing power of digging.

For gardeners or cooks, these cards suggest growing tips, complementary foods and medicinal uses for 100 herbs and each one is illustrated on the reverse with an abstract design of its plant. The content and images are reproduced from the book Herbarium by Caz Hildebrand.

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Featuring pieces published in the Guardian between 1838 and 2008, this anthology recounts changing fashions in British horticulture and garden design. Authors include Arthur Ransome, Nancy Banks-Smith and Christopher Lloyd; topics range from royal parks to allotments and from garden centres to gnomes.

Combining memoir and travelogue, the botanist and conservationist Jeremy Purseglove describes how nature has long been exploited across our planet, considering issues such as the palm oil trade in Indonesia, land grabs in Africa and peat farming in Britain. He outlines how the earth's precious resources can be harvested more carefully and suggests workable alternatives to what he refers to as 'grim industrialised monocultures'.

Holly Farrell presents an illustrated guide to preserving a wide selection of homegrown fruits, vegetables, herbs and edible flowers. The introduction covers the basics of growing, looking at topics from soil preparation to raising from seed and container gardening. Organized by season, the cookery section features traditional recipes – Windfall Marmalade, and Pickled Rhubarb – as well as more modern ideas such as Pepper Ketchup. A comprehensive ‘Kitchen Notes’ chapter offers advice on subjects including testing for a set and storage.

This holistic guide to well-being explains how to treat a range of health conditions using traditional remedies made from ingredients that can be easily foraged from hedgerows or sourced from the supermarket. Covering both minor illnesses and injuries and more complex issues such as insomnia, the recipes, which include balms, tonics, poultices and teas, are easily tailored to individual needs.

Illustrated with exotic flowers and birds from the world-famous Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library, this set comprises one lined, one blank and one graph paper notebook in three different colourways.

Named after the owner’s east London boutique, this illustrated introduction offers all the basic information needed to grow cacti and succulents successfully. It begins with a comprehensive directory that showcases the surprisingly diverse colours, shapes and sizes of the different species, then gives advice on caring for and displaying them, explaining how they are relatively low maintenance and make ideal house plants. Slightly off-mint. Felt tip mark on upper trimmed edge.

After giving advice on choosing an appropriate species, based on the light, humidity and temperature of the room it will be placed in, this illustrated guide explains wiring, pruning, and how to grow your own bonsai from seed. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

Matthew Biggs profiles the lives and achievements of 35 botanists whose work in fields such as plant collecting, plant-based medicine, genetics or hybridization has significantly increased our understanding of plants. Richly illustrated with horticultural drawings, portraits and photographs, and noting how each botanist can inspire today’s gardeners, the book is arranged chronologically from the ‘Father of Pharmacology’, Pedanius Dioscorides (fl. 50 CE), through figures including Linnaeus, Joseph Banks and Gregor Mendel, to Patrick Blanc, the pioneer of vertical gardening.

Drawing on diaries and sketchbooks kept by visitors over three centuries, this book presents the histories of the 16 finest parks and gardens in Wales. An examination of travel conditions in the age of the stagecoach precedes a survey of changing horticultural fashions from the Renaissance to the end of the Romantic era. More than 200 period paintings, drawings and engravings are shown with photographs of the gardens today.

Many fundamentals of the gardening lexicon – from topiary and water features to the lawnmower and Dr Ward’s ground-breaking prototype terrarium – were once novelties, the result of aesthetic or technological innovation. This miscellany, illustrated with black-and-white line drawings by Dave Hopkins, celebrates fifty horticultural inventions and trends and considers how they have shaped the way in which we engage with our gardens today.

Combining specially commissioned drawings and a short history of each maze, this book allows the reader to trace a route through 60 of the world’s most beguiling life-size puzzles. Both real and imagined, they range from the Nazca Lines of Peru and Roman mosaics in Portugal and Pompeii to the Winchester labyrinth, supposedly constructed by a melancholy schoolboy, and the walls of yew around which an axe-wielding Jack Nicholson lumbers in Kubrick’s The Shining.

With a foreword by village fair stalwart Alan Titchmarsh and advice from cookery teacher Thane Prince and gardening expert Matthew Biggs, this illustrated compendium offers a unique insight into the particularities of a great British tradition. It looks at the RHS guidelines on selecting and presenting produce and includes interviews with show veterans and tried-and-tested recipes for cakes, chutneys and jams.

This beginners guide to indoor planting features 20 projects to add low-maintenance greenery to your home, including terrariums, kokedama (moss balls), succulents and bonsai. Instructions are also given for making a variety of containers in which to display them.

Charting the setting up of a community allotment in the Devon village of Cornworthy, the first-hand accounts in this book describe their initial planning and preparation, before progressing through the seasons. There is a wealth of practical advice given, on establishing a plot, choice of crops, rotation and how to deal with pests.

Wolfgang Oehme (1930–2011) spearheaded the ‘New American’ garden style that is defined by vast sweeps of herbaceous perennials and grasses. This volume, with photographs of his creations, documents his life in landscape architecture and includes a detailed glossary of the plants that featured in his projects in Germany and the United States.

Inspired by the earlier book of the same title by the American author Bill Adler, the gardening expert Anne Wareham shares her own practical tips on how to outsmart garden pests large and small as well as offering advice on dealing with the horticultural challenges posed by weeds and the weather.

Challenging the view of plants as passive vegetation, Mabey approaches them as ’authors of their own lives’ and explores our relationship with them, from prehistoric cave painting, through cultivation and exploration to the ‘astonishing revelations of 19th-century botany’. Among the intriguing plants whose lives he discusses are the baobab tree; ginseng, the panacea; the carnivorous tipitiwitchet; an Amazonian giant water lily whose leaves were the model for the Crystal Palace; and the intelligence of mimosa.

Arranged by geographical area and illustrated with colour photographs, this comprehensive guide to Scottish gardens includes a detailed description of each location, recommendations on the best time of year to visit and what to look out for, an introduction to the history of gardening in Scotland and information about specialist nurseries, garden centres, wildflower walks and public parks.

Castles at Achinduin and Coeffin, an Iron Age broch at Tirfuir, two Bronze Age cairns, the remains of the medieval cathedral of Argyll, and evidence of lime-burning industry at Sailean: the relatively fertile island of Lismore (Lios Mòr, ‘the great garden’) at the mouth of the Great Glen has attracted settlement since the Neolithic era. From prehistory to the present, Robert Hay traces the fortunes of the island and the conflicts over its possession, from Vikings to Campbells.

From formal topiary at Levens Hall, Cumbria, to the seemingly natural flower meadows of Piet Oudolf’s Millennium Garden at Pensthorpe Waterfowl Park in Norfolk, Ursula Buchan presents a thematic survey of English domestic gardens, illustrated with over 300 photographs by Andrew Lawson.

Covering the origins, history and botany of raw ingredients and their culinary uses, this authoritative reference work begins with general chapters on the growing, harvesting and trading of foods. The main part of the Encyclopedia is an illustrated directory of edible plants describing almost 500 plant species in sections on fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, herbs and spices, plants used in beverages, and sugars and oils. Finally, the reference section provides nutritional tables, a glossary and index.

Aimed at the time-poor gardener who wants to achieve maximum yield with minimum effort, this book explains how to grow apples, pears, plums, cherries, soft fruit and nuts in even the smallest space. Illustrated with photographs of the author’s own garden, it offers practical, easy-to-follow advice on planning and design, what to grow, planting, pruning, mulches, compost, watering, weeding and dealing with pests and diseases.

This unusual book brings together practical advice on both gardening and cookery. Each of its alphabetical entries on more than 90 vegetables, herbs, fruits and nuts contains easy-to-follow instructions for growing, harvesting and preserving, along with a recipe. The featured dishes include Cauliflower and Blue Cheese Soup; Asparagus, Pancetta and Labna Spaghetti; Prawn and Fennel Stew; and Rhubarb Tiramisu.

As Chris Packham writes in his foreword, gardening need not be a battle for dominance over nature. Val Bourne recounts her own conversion to natural gardening and explains how, by choosing the right plants and allowing natural predators to deal with pests, rather than applying chemicals, gardens can be created that are both beautiful and animal friendly. The final chapter suggests 100 plants for an eco-friendly garden that supports and complements its wildlife.

A portfolio of the best images in the annual photographic competition, this volume presents the 2013 entries. Categories include 'Wildflower Landscapes', 'Greening the City' and 'Trees, Woods and Forests', and the images display a range of responses to flowers, plants and gardens all over the world, from a view of allotments in Warsaw and a French formal garden at sunrise, to studies of leaves, and water lilies in the New York Botanical Garden.

Famed for cultivating plants from around the world, Kew Gardens is also home to many uncultivated species. Drawing on historic citations and herbarium specimen records, this illustrated catalogue lists all native and alien flora documented growing wild at Kew since its foundation in 1759.

Joseph Hooker’s perilous explorations in the Himalayas between 1848 and 1851 resulted in the collection of some 5,000 different species of plants, none more celebrated than the rhododendrons. The three volumes of Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya (1849, 1851), with Hooker’s rough sketches transformed into lithographs by the botanical artist Walter Hood Fitch, were to have a lasting impact on British gardening. This facsimile edition presents the three volumes bound as one, along with short introductory essays. No jacket.

The trees, lawns and open water at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew attract a diverse range of wildlife all year round. Arranged by season, the photographs in this book capture winter wildfowl, spring flowers, the butterflies of summer, and autumn fungi. The text explains their habits and lifecycles, each entry offers tips for photographers, and a map shows the best spots to take wildlife pictures.

Published in the popular Kew Growing series and sponsored by the Orchid Specialist Group, this guide is written for amateurs and professionals without access to sophisticated apparatus and chemicals. With straightforward text and diagrams, it explains the whole process of growing orchids, from selecting or making equipment, through pollinating flowers, obtaining and storing seed, sowing and germination, to transplanting and growing on seedlings.

Drawing on the expertise of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, this practical guide selects the best plants for a variety of purposes in and around the home. The varieties are arranged in order of character – structural or edible, for example – and Katherine Price selects those compatible with domestic spaces, from window boxes to bedrooms and bathrooms, and outlines the care that each requires.

A celebratory anthology of plants and flowers, this Florilegium was created by today’s botanical artists to mark the 200th anniversary of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. Australia’s extraordinary flora has beguiled botanists and plant collectors since Sir Joseph Banks, who arrived in Sydney Cove in 1770, and each of the 85 plants depicted in this volume is accompanied by notes on its history, including early admirers among plant hunters, as well as a botanical description.

The botanist Ben-Erik van Wyk presents a fully illustrated, scientific guide to nearly all the commercial herbs and spices in use today. After chapters on the history of spices and culinary traditions and lists of common names, the A to Z covers over 150 species, from Aframomum corrorima (Ethiopian cardamom) to Zingiber officinale (ginger), each illustrated entry giving details of the spice or herb, the plant, its origins, cultivation and culinary use and the chemistry of its flavour.

Covering a botanically diverse group of 133 species, this is a systematic and authoritative account of the ‘Cape hyacinths’.

Providing practical advice and information for would-be mole catchers, this illustrated handbook includes a history of the trade, descriptions of trap types, useful tips, answers to frequently asked questions, and guidance on the most humane modern methods of capture.

This beginner's guide for mature gardeners offers advice on clothing, tools, soil preparation, containers and planting techniques. It explains the health benefits of growing and maintaining flowers, fruit and vegetables, and provides a user-friendly plant directory and glossary.

Throughout history, monarchs have created magnificent gardens both for relaxation and to advertise their wealth and power. Illustrated with 150 colour photographs, this book explores 20 of the finest, including Louis XIV’s Versailles, Frederick the Great’s Sanssouci, the royal palaces of Fez and Edo Castle in Tokyo. Each entry explains the history of the garden, profiles its creators, describes its style, planning and principles, and includes interviews with the present owners.

In this illustrated guide to organic fruit growing and maintenance, the horticulturalist Yvonne Cuthbertson offers advice on choosing the best produce to suit the plot (whether a garden, allotment, terrace or window box), clearly describes how to plant, propagate, prune, harvest and store it and provides a comprehensive directory of popular varieties that are suitable to grow in the UK.

Every garden has the potential to attract butterflies. This illustrated guide shows how to encourage these vital pollinators by providing them with the right plants to feed on and places to breed and hibernate. Chapters cover the butterfly lifecycle, common garden butterflies, and preferred habitats. A directory lists food plant species, while a final chapter offers tips on photographing butterflies.

After reflecting on why people visit gardens and especially why gardeners visit other people’s plots, Louisa Jones looks at ten different examples, including historic, cottage and kitchen gardens, plantsmen’s collections, outdoor art, and Mediterranean, Japanese-inspired and minimalist styles. She discusses the key elements of each type and how the visitor should approach them, then invites ten experts to choose their favourite locations from around the world.

The 18th-century English landscape garden, with its seemingly natural appearance, was a revolution in design and its legacy can still be seen in gardens and parks. In this well-illustrated history Symes traces the origins and evolution of the style; discusses its place in contemporary politics, philosophy and culture; and surveys its variations through the works of major designers, from William Kent and the ‘pictorial garden’ to Humphrey Repton and the Picturesque.

During the successful Dig for Victory campaign, which aimed to make wartime Britain self-sufficient, gardeners everywhere dug up their lawns to grow not only fruit and vegetables, but flowers too, inspiring ‘faith, hope, cheerfulness and courage’. From composting to harvesting, this playful history of the campaign features all aspects of wartime gardening, and is vividly illustrated by original pamphlets, recoloured photographs and instructional cartoons.

Covering an extraordinary diversity of gardens across the world – classical Chinese aesthetics in Suzhou, cactus terraces in Lanzarote, a Persian oasis in Iran and Gertrude Jekyll’s Arts and Crafts garden at Upton Grey Manor in Hampshire – this is a survey to inspire gardeners and designers. The book looks at 100 exceptional gardens, describing, illustrating and explaining in detail the key elements of each one from a design perspective.

With their long vistas, cascading terraces and mysterious grottoes, the gardens of Italian villas seem like paradise on earth; but who created them, and why? Using reproductions of contemporary paintings and prints as well as colour photographs, Helena Attlee traces the history of Italian gardens from the Middle Ages, through the classically inspired plans of the Renaissance, the quirky inventions of the Mannerists and the formal elegance of the 18th century to the eclectic creations of today.

Some of the finest gardens in the UK, among them Polesden Lacey, Hidcote, Sissinghurst and Stourhead, are cared for by the National Trust and its teams of expert gardeners. In this well-illustrated volume, those experts guide the inexperienced gardener through the whole process of planning, preparing, planting and maintaining a garden, whether large or small, employing the same techniques and the same principles of greener, forward-looking gardening that are used in the historic gardens of National Trust properties.

In this volume, garden photographer Andrea Jones offers four approaches to garden design: ‘Connect’ provides ideas for paths, lawns and bridges linking spaces together; ‘Divide’ examines how hedges, walls, screens and borders can create rooms within a garden; ‘Space’ explores ways to fill a garden, whatever the size; and ‘Style’ covers every type of garden from formal to oriental. Including directories of designers, festivals, garden centres and public gardens, this is a comprehensive sourcebook for anyone seeking modern garden ideas.

Taking the wide range of National Trust garden styles as its inspiration, this illustrated design sourcebook demonstrates how even a small outdoor space can benefit from the details that are found in much larger gardens. There are planting ideas for all seasons, covering colour co-ordination, flower, vegetable, herb and container gardens, and imaginative suggestions for using steps, seats, paths, paving and topiary, with plenty of valuable advice from the Trust’s head gardeners.

Taking inspiration from prairies, savannahs, marshes and woodland edges this book demonstrates the diversity of grasses and how their range of colour and size has made them an integral part of garden design. Hundreds of photographs showcase their use as architectural shapes, as screens, in containers or as companions to other plants, while advice on purchase and care gives practical guidance to creating a range of striking year-round effects.

The five-acre garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll at Upton Grey in Hampshire had fallen into neglect when Rosamund Wallinger and her husband bought the house in 1984. This volume records her meticulous recreation of this horticultural masterpiece, and the painstaking research that informed it. Illustrated with Jekyll’s original plans and photographs of the restored plantings throughout the year, the book showcases the skill that made her one of Britain’s most influential horticultural designers.

Along with a compost carousel – showing what can and can’t be composted – a ‘worms and ladders’ game, bingo and a worm identification chart, this guide covers all the practical information needed to start composting at home. Also included are three sheets of colour stickers, a press-out Worm Lovers’ Society card and facts and jokes about soil and worms. Age 7+

The British have always been a nation of gardeners, and their distinctive creations have been admired and emulated across the globe. This book traces the history of British gardening over 450 years through the stories of 26 key figures, from early plant hunters such as the Tradescants, though the celebrated 18th-century landscape gardeners Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and Humphry Repton to 20th-century pioneers such as Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West. A 32-page section of colour plates showcases their achievements.

A guide to all things vegetable-related, this volume includes an A–Z of over 50 vegetables, a section on how to grow your own, ways to use vegetables to boost well-being, craft projects and 120 recipes. Readers can discover which plants to forage, a remedy that will stop a cough, a way to make shampoo, or how to knit a bag for market, alongside recipes that range from Cucumber Sandwiches to Stuffed Zucchini Flowers.

Written for the reluctant gardener, this is a guide to what not to do in the garden. Rather than letting your plot revert to wilderness, Wareham (the gardener of Veddw House, near Tintern) encourages finding easier ways to do the jobs you dislike and suggests effective alternatives. The book is arranged by season, from what not to do in spring (grow roses – if you don’t grow them they won’t need pruning), to winter (washing empty pots – madness).

From an article published in 1900 on Gregor Mendel’s work on peas by William Bateson, the man who coined the term ‘genetics’, to Toby Musgrave on growing heritage fruit and vegetables in 2012, this anthology brings together the best and most important writing from The Garden, the journal of the Royal Horticultural Society. The selections are in chapters ranging from seasons and the weather to the RHS itself, and are interspersed with vibrant illustrations by Jenny Bowers.

The wrapping papers in this set were inspired by the colourful and almost abstract illustrations of herbs in Caz Hildebrand’s book Herbarium (2016). It comprises ten sheets of wrapping paper, all different designs, folded into the book and perforated to tear out easily, plus matching gift tags.

Since the end of the Second World War, the cartoon gardener Mr Digwell has been dispensing horticultural advice to Daily Mirror readers, and he remains as popular as ever. This collection offers a comprehensive, month-by-month guide to a gardener’s tasks, from winter pruning through spring seed sowing and planting out to autumn lawn care. Clear, simple strip cartoons present up-to-date information on growing flowers, shrubs and vegetables in a reassuringly traditional manner.

Keeping a plant in your home requires an understanding of factors such as ideal temperature and lighting conditions, how much watering the plant requires and how large it may grow. This ring-bound reference book provides a directory of 140 of the most popular indoor plants with advice on selection, watering, feeding, potting and propagation, and a useful summary table of each plant's key characteristics.

Illustrated with engravings, postcards and maps, this is a history of Manchester Botanical Society's garden at Old Trafford, from its brilliant heyday to sad decline as a doomed amusement park.

Part of the Reader's Digest Garden Basics series of straightforward, illustrated guides, this handy, ring-bound book is in two main parts: a seasonal guide to keeping the garden healthy and a directory of over 200 pests and diseases arranged by symptom, with special features on roses, slugs and snails, winter pruning and lawn care. The introductory section includes information on beneficial creatures and using organic treatments.

The British passion for gardens stretches back hundreds of years and has produced an array of horticultural masterpieces from landscaped parks to hidden gems. This practical guidebook, organized by county, describes gardens open to the public and provides maps, directions and contact details. Beautiful photographs show some of these wonderful gardens, including the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Stourhead, Hatfield House, Beth Chatto Gardens, Castle Howard and Drummond Castle Gardens.

Challenging the view of plants as passive vegetation, Mabey approaches them as ’authors of their own lives’ and explores our relationship with them, from prehistoric cave painting, through cultivation and exploration to the ‘astonishing revelations of 19th-century botany’. Among the intriguing plants whose lives he discusses are the baobab tree; ginseng, the panacea; the carnivorous tipitiwitchet; an Amazonian giant water lily whose leaves were the model for the Crystal Place; and the intelligence of mimosa.

This guide from the bestselling Gardeners' World magazine shows how to identify and overcome the pests and diseases that can affect flowers, shrubs, fruits and vegetables. There is information on using chemical-free control methods, as well as an A–Z of common problems and step-by-step photo guides on useful techniques to combat them.

Natasha Edwards, who grew up on her parents’ garlic farm on the Isle of Wight, introduces the many properties of ‘the mighty bulb’ in cookery and as medicinal marvel. As well as 50 recipes for dishes and drinks, including the famous Chicken with 40 Garlic Cloves and Garlic Bloody Mary, the book provides detailed information and guidance on using garlic in natural remedies, and a final chapter explains how to grow your own. Foreword by Clarissa Dickson Wright.

For thousands of years, people around the world have adopted belief systems that give a key role to the natural world and the trees, fruits and flowers found there. This book explores this complex subject, pointing to similarities and differences, and showing how belief systems often transfer their ideas to the real world, such as the Pure Land gardens of Buddhist Japan. It is richly illustrated with a mix of historical images and photography of contemporary gardens.

Although famed for its parks, it is the wide range of private gardens that makes London one of the most verdant cities in the world. This well-illustrated volume introduces 30 of its most interesting examples, from the grand and traditional grounds of Clarence House to the allotment tended by Chelsea Flower Show winner Cleve West. They include garden squares, rooftop retreats and even floating gardens created on barges moored in Bermondsey.

In this extensively illustrated volume Nick Bailey, a presenter on BBC’s Gardeners’ World, describes the art and science of flower colour, demonstrating how to achieve a balanced display all year round. Organized by season, it suggests plants for a range of soil types and locations; explains the gardening techniques that can improve flowering and extend the season; and offers advice on plants that work well together.

Behind the high walls of the Vatican, beautifully kept gardens offer the Pope a tranquil refuge, fragrant with sweet herbs and cooled by shade trees and fountains. Linda Kooluris Dobbs's photographs give us access to these normally hidden lawns and avenues, grottoes and parterres, with their fine statuary and fountains, and their imposing backdrop – the buildings of the Vatican and the dome of St Peter's. Kildare Dobbs's introductory essay accompanies this collection of over 140 photographs.

The garden created by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, at Kenilworth was one of the wonders of Elizabethan England. It was also the best-documented garden of its age, allowing English Heritage to recreate it in 2009. Comprising 17 essays by specialists and lavishly illustrated with reproductions, plans and modern photographs, this book charts the documentary and archaeological detective work that went into that project, but also represents a major addition to the study of English garden history.

There is an enormous variety of sun-loving plants, with endless potential for stunning planting schemes. Graham Clarke shows how to select sun-loving varieties and plant with confidence, whatever your experience and abilities.

The Daily Telegraph has long been popular reading among gardeners, and its pages have featured some of the nation's finest horticultural writers. Compiled by the newspaper's gardening columnist, this lively and varied anthology includes articles by Fred Whitsey, Rosemary Verey and Bunny Guinness, along with the more esoteric musings of Bill Deedes, Germaine Greer and Roy Strong. The subjects range from Vita Sackville-West's garden at Sissinghurst to how to grow prize-winning pumpkins. Book club edition.