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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.