For gardeners who would rather dig into history than deal with another invasion of bindweed, this selection of books ranges across the centuries from ancient Egyptian orchards to modern orchid hybrids, and includes the stories of famous gardens, iconic flowers and intrepid plant-hunters.
Orchard by Jane McMorland Hunter and Chris Kelly
While often associated nowadays with apples, the earliest orchards were walled and irrigated enclosures in ancient Persia and Egypt where figs, dates, pomegranates and vines were cultivated. Known as pairidaeza, the source of the Greek ‘paradeisos’ and, from there, ‘paradise’, they tended to follow a formal grid pattern and were renowned for their combination of utility and beauty. Orchard follows a history of their development with an account of the cultivation of seven orchard fruits.
RHS Orchids by Charlotte Brooks
In the late 1920s, while still in his teens, Eric Young began to amass what became one of the finest orchid collections; he went on to dedicate his life to the plant and shortly before his death in 1984 established a Foundation in his native Jersey to continue his work. Some forty years later the Foundation has become world-renowned for developing new hybrids, often naming them for places on the island, and images of some of their creations conclude this RHS illustrated history of the plant.
Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum by Stephen A Harris
Britain’s oldest surviving botanic garden was established in 1621 as a source of medicinal plants, but on land that was not promising for such a venture. Located between Magdalen College and the River Cherwell, the low-lying, poorly drained pasture had to be raised – apparently by the provision of ‘4000 loads of mucke and dunge’ – and digging the foundations for the garden’s limestone walls revealed evidence of the site’s former use as a burial ground. Stephen A Harris’ history traces the garden’s development and how its fortunes changed with the priorities of its keepers.
Public Parks, Private Gardens by Colta Ives
The final two decades of the Ancien Régime saw the formal layouts of French gardens begin to relax – Versailles received secluded groves planted in an irregular style, Marie Antoinette had the grounds of Trianon installed with romantic gardens strewn with pseudo-antique structures inspired by the English Picturesque, and numerous publications promoted naturalistic styles. In Public Parks, Private Gardens, Colta Ives explores this change, illustrating her essays with paintings by artists including Monet, Cézanne and Van Gogh.
The Rose by Jennifer Potter
Native to the northern hemisphere and with fossilized evidence dating it to perhaps 35 million years ago, the rose has been imbued with symbolic meaning, used in medicine and perfume, and hybridized for generations. In her comprehensive exploration of how the flower came to hold such fascination, Jennifer Potter traces the earliest undisputed image of a rose to the ‘Blue Bird fresco’ painted in Knossos some 3,500 years ago and credits Theophrastus as the first to distinguish between wild and tame roses in his Enquiry into Plants, written around 300 BCE.
Strange Blooms by Jennifer Potter
As gardeners and collectors at the vanguard of expanding scientific knowledge, John Tradescant and his son travelled extensively to bring specimens such as magnolia, poppy and Virginia creeper to Britain; their collection of plants and curiosities – named colloquially as ‘Tredeskins Ark’ – became the country’s first public museum and provided the founding items for the Ashmolean. Jennifer Potter’s dual biography traces the elder Tradescant’s involvement with the development of Robert Cecil’s kitchen garden at Hatfield House from 1610 to 1615 and his excursions across the Low Countries, France, Russia and the Middle East, before turning to his son’s ventures into the New World.
The Domestic Herbal by Margaret Willes
The 17th century saw the establishment of new trading links that brought plants such as tobacco, potatoes and sugar to Britain, and increasing value placed on the ‘herbal’ – a book that offered accounts of how herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetables could be used for a range of domestic purposes. As part of her survey of the ubiquity of plants in life at the time Margaret Willes creates a herbal of her own, profiling fifty species from alecost, a member of the daisy family used to flavour ale and to ward off mildew and clothes moths, to wormwood, traditionally used in the preparation of vermouth and absinthe.
