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.

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.

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.

This 1990 study of André Le Nôtre (1643–1700), the creator of the French 'formal' garden, sets his work within the contexts of French traditions of land management, advances in cartography and engineering, and the social and architectural development of the château. Translated by Graham Larkin. Foreword by John Dixon Hunt.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

First published in 1770, Thomas Whately’s comprehensive study of the English landscape garden became the standard text on the subject both in Britain and abroad. This first modern edition is accompanied by an introduction and commentary, alongside contemporary illustrations of the gardens and places discussed. It makes available to the modern reader a crucial primary source on what is often regarded as this country’s greatest original contribution to the arts.

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.

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.

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.

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+

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Presenting works ranging from Leonard Knyff’s panoramic View of Hampton Court (c.1703) to Fabergé’s enamelled and jewelled flowers (c.1900), this volume draws on the Royal Collection to trace the changing design and function of gardens through the art they have inspired. After a short chapter on early Islamic gardens, the history traces royal and aristocratic garden style from medieval sacred gardens to the 19th-century ‘horticultural garden’, with a final chapter on ceramics and ornament. Foreword by Sir Roy Strong.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The first section of this illustrated volume outlines the history of knot gardens from Tudor times to the present day, exploring their decorative and symbolic aspects. Anne Jennings then explores different ways of using the motif as a feature and offers clear advice on establishing a knot garden at home – from selecting a site and choosing plants to their ongoing care and maintenance.

After analysing plant-covered garden structures and how they have been used over the centuries, this illustrated volume looks at five of Britain's finest pergolas, such as those situated at West Dean and Hestercombe. In addition, the landscape architect Paul Edwards explains in detail the process of designing, building and planting a pergola with reference to six of his own projects, including two for the National Trust.

The Austrian conservationist Georg Grabherr aims to inspire amateur horticulturalists to convert their outside space into a 'Noah's Ark' of threatened trees, plants and flowers. Featuring numerous images of his own garden through the seasons by the award-winning photographer Lois Lammerhuber, he explains how, over time, he has created an ecological haven in his back garden. Text in German and English.

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).

Monet at Giverny, Renoir at Les Collettes, the American Impressionist Childe Hassam in Celia Thaxter’s garden at Appledore, and, contemporary with the Impressionists, Gertrude Jekyll’s creation of Munstead Wood; these are among the artists and the inspirational gardens described and illustrated – by both paintings and photographs – in this unusual study.

Creating a garden from scratch, or transforming a drab patch into the retreat of your dreams, are tasks that require imagination, optimism and hard work. This guide from an RHS gardening expert takes the reader from conception and design through the practical steps required for horticultural makeovers, with photographs and examples ranging from humble urban makeovers to a remodelled castle garden.

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.

Starting with quiz night in the Prince of Wales on Highgate Hill, Mark Mason sets off in search of the perfect quiz question. In venues as far-flung as a hotel bar in Edinburgh and a village pub in Suffolk, he meets the aficionados of the quiz world and a veritable deluge of facts, figures and trivia.

This thorough exploration of Norfolk’s rich heritage of parks and gardens offers a history of landscape architecture in the county, from the geometrical gardens of the 16th century to the eco-gardens of today. More than 300 sites are described in detail, from tiny hidden gems to spectacular landscape parks. Illustrated throughout, it includes work by Capability Brown, Humphry Repton, Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll. Slightly off-mint.

Beginning with a 'rules and tools' section that covers the selection of suitable plant material and equipment, this illustrated step-by-step guide explains how to follow best practice at every stage of the propagation process. A comprehensive directory with more than 525 RHS-selected varieties of annuals, biennials, perennials and indoor, woody and bedding plants describes which techniques to use for each.

Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s success in creating landscapes that could be ‘mistaken for Nature’ meant that his methods often went unnoticed and there has been surprisingly little professional analysis of his work. Drawing on fresh documentary evidence and illustrated with colour photographs, paintings and Brown’s own sketches and plans, this book examines the 270 landscapes he designed, from Blenheim Palace to St James’s Park in London, and clarifies his ideas and techniques.

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.

This practical guide show how hundreds of species of flora and fauna can be encouraged into a range of British gardens. Following photographs and brief descriptions of the most commonly seen mammals, birds, invertebrates, reptiles and plants, advice is given on planting for pollinators, creating different habitats, and building simple hibernation and nesting boxes.

Written by three gardening experts, this extensively illustrated guide to edible horticulture offers detailed instructions on planting and cultivation. Covering favourites such as runner beans and tomatoes as well as more exotic plants, including cassava and lemon grass, it offers advice on choosing the right varieties for your garden and dealing with pests and diseases. Information on harvesting and storing produce is provided, with over 600 recipes for a range of meals and herbal remedies.

Aimed at the complete novice, this illustrated guide to some of the most resilient plants introduces the basic elements of gardening and identifies the perennials, shrubs, climbers, annuals and bulbs, fruits and vegetables, and house plants that can thrive with little attention. The concise text offers straightforward notes about why and where to grow each one, and a brief list of its preferred conditions.

Arranged as an A–Z, the majority of the 1,500 plants in this compendium have been given the RHS Award of Garden Merit. A photograph and brief description of each one is followed by cultivation notes detailing their hardiness, preferred aspect and soil, pruning requirements, and eventual height and spread.

From Abelia to Wisteria, this pocket guide explains when and how to prune over 200 garden trees, shrubs and climbers, and the benefits of doing so. Clear diagrams show the typical structure of the plants, with marks indicating the parts that should be removed to promote healthy growth, improve cropping and flowering, and create more aesthetically pleasing shapes.

After establishing the basics of running a successful allotment, this well-illustrated volume explains the tasks that need to be carried out each month, from buying seeds, to sowing, harvesting and storing produce. More detailed information on growing each type of fruit or vegetable follows, with the aim of having a supply of fresh produce throughout the year, and a troubleshooting section suggests solutions for common problems.

The opportunity to grow exotic fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices has never been greater, with a diverse range of seeds and plants now available. Matthew Biggs’ well-illustrated manual presents step-by-step instructions for growing over 50 varieties, including chickpeas, Chinese artichokes, turmeric and goji berries, with a handy quick reference section for each, and tips on cooking and storing them.

Determined to counter the misconception that gardening is expensive, Huw Richards spent a year producing food at no cost. Illustrated throughout, his guide to making raised beds and containers, composting, harvesting seeds from shop-bought produce and sharing tools demonstrates the rewards of a frugal approach before showing how to grow a variety of fruits, herbs and vegetables.

Using 50 years of personal experience, Monty Don offers general advice on garden design, colour and managing changes in the seasons, followed by information on choosing plants, whether for a small town plot, a cottage garden, or one created with children or wildlife in mind. Further topics include dealing with weeds and pests, and growing food, before a final section describes jobs for the month.

This updated edition of the classic guide to garden health includes information on an additional 25 pests and diseases, new treatments and resistant plants. The first section explains how to identify common problems, aided by clear photographs; the second offers an A–Z of symptoms, causes and control methods, many of which are biological; and a final section details the problems associated with particular species.