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These are the best general books on all aspects of gardening. Reference books, manuals, bedside reading, armchair browsing, or essential companions as you wander around your beds, borders, allotments, estates…. These are what you need.
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Jekka McVicar has established herself as the guru of herbs. Now she spreads her wings further afield to include all kinds of plants in this excellent book.
Who amongst us gardeners has not picked a handful of seeds and then wondered what to do with them - sow now, or store? Stratify or scarify? Jekka McVicar's book provides the answer, whether you have a huge coconut (soak, remove fibre, scarify, then sow and wait several months) or a minuscule - 3,000 seeds per gram - poppy seed (sow in autumn).
Separate chapters deal with Alpines & rock plants; annuals and biennials; ferns; grasses; shrubs; trees; aquatic plants; cacti and succulents; climbers; herbs; palms & cycads; perennials; vegetables; and practical information. Soil, final size and other cultivation tips are provided for each plant, and the whole is topped off by an excellent index.
I hesitate to call 'Seeds: the ultimate guide' a handbook, although that would give some idea of how comprehensive it is, but this book is far more attractive than your average handbook. Highly recommended.
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This reference book gives photographic explanations of every gardening technique and has more than 500 separate step-by-step sequences.
Written by a team of international experts over three years, its range and depth illustrates authoritative and up-to-date practical gardening skills from simple to advanced. There are four major sections.
Part one covers all the different plant groups and areas of the garden, advising on the uses of the plants, soil preparation, planting, maintenance, pruning and propagation. The chapters include: ornamental trees and shrubs, climbers, the rose garden, perennials, annuals and biennials, the rock garden, the water garden, cacti, the herb and vegetable gardens and fruit.
Part two gets to grips with the practicalities of tools and equipment, greenhouses and frames, and garden structures and surfaces.
Part three covers successful cultivation and propagation techniques by looking at the climate and how to protect plants, soil types and fertilizers, treating pests and diseases - including organic methods of treatment alongside conventional or chemical controls, plant problems, and dealing with weeds.
Part four contains seasonal reminders, and a glossary and index which includes common names.
Pretty well essential, what more can we say?
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John Brookes is one of the doyens of garden designers. Credited with inventing the concept of the garden as outside room in 1969 (although the Romans might have disputed that claim), he has been described as the world's most influential garden designer.
This book brings together 40 years' of Brookes' experience of garden design, both in practice and as a teacher. He explores and explains every detail of garden design with enthusiasm and knowledge. Each chapter deals with once element, such as Shape, Surface, Structure or Water. Sketches, diagrams and photographs enhance the information.
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Packed with practical advice, this volume breathes new life into every aspect of gardening. Drawing directly on the experience gained from his own organic plot in Herefordshire, Monty Don explains how a sustainable approach to gardening is the way forward for all keen gardeners. The book features photograhs taken over the course of a year in Monty's own garden, showing you how to grow strong, healthy plants and harvest delicious produce while respecting the needs of the environment. Straightforward, practical advice and step-by-step photographs combine to show best practice in food and flowers, from composting and pest management to sowing, planting and harvesting fruit and vegetables, and which varieties to choose for the most successful results. Good design is also emphasized, with advice on using colour, shape and texture in the flower garden
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This weighty tome claims to be "the only garden book you'll ever need" and although that's not quite true (for instance, a good encyclopaedia with clear photos for identification is a useful addition) this is a good book.
It is divided into sections: Garden Planning and Design, Best Plants for Every Site, Gardening in Practice, The Kitchen Garden and The Gardener's Calendar, and though I tried to catch it out by looking up several sections, it covered them very well and very clearly. The illustrations contribute information and a pleasing overall look. A book to recommend.
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How to Be a Gardener: Book Two is the follow-up to the successful How to Be a Gardener: Book One by Alan Titchmarsh. Resolutely aimed at the virtual beginner, this volume adds to the basic techniques of the first in the practical context of making and maintaining gardens. An introductory consideration of garden types and how to make the best of what nature and the previous owner have bequeathed is followed by a look at structure and style, with the remainder of the book dedicated to the practice. Fences, hedges, pergolas, patios, beds and borders, water features, vegetables and wildlife and covered (i.e., greenhouse and conservatory) gardens are each explored in depth, giving all the information the nervous gardener will need to bring it all together. (With thanks to Robin Davidson)
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Simply a must-have. Cultivation tips, identification hints. All serious gardeners - and even those with a sense of humour - must have one.
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One of Dr Hessayon's classic and evergreen Expert bestsellers. Slightly old-fashioned, but dependable. Clearly laid out in his inimitable style with concise, dogmatic and accurate information.
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This initially looked like one of those books that told us, yet again, that beer drowns slugs, but… it turns out to have far more original and interesting tips. Vacuum cleaner fluff is apparently a superb feed for tomato plants. Old tea bags and muscle rub spray will keep cats away. A mirror by your carrots will provoke the carrot fly to attack her reflection until she dies of fatigue or concussion (can this be true?).
Written by gardening broadcaster and writer Steve Brookes, this is perhaps more a book to dip into than to read all the way through, but nevertheless a treasure trove of fun ideas.
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Does what is says on the tin - a complete guide to pruning shrubs, hedges, trees and climbers as well as tree fruit and soft fruit.
Step-by-step illustrations of techniques, and information on topiary and
neglected plants.
A useful guide to what can be a daunting subject.
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This "jargon-free" book takes you through the basics: Which tools do I
need? When do I plant bulbs? What are annuals and perennials? Do all shrubs
need pruning?
For instance the section on soil discusses the different types of soil, pH,
soil profiles, soil improvement, cultivation techniques (digging, raking,
forking, hoeing) and so forth.
It is very detailed - a whole page diagram analyses the mysteries of single digging; another one does the same for double digging.
Having said that, it's all in there, so if you read a section a night, you'd
be a complete gardener by the end.
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'Making a Low-Maintenance Garden' leads the reader through Easy Surfaces and
Features, Planting Features for Easy Upkeep, Designs for Easy Upkeep, Easier
ways to Garden and finishes off with an A-Z directory of easy plants.
The authors haven't got rid of the gardening aspect altogether - there are
poppy and foxglove borders, cottage gardening and even interplanted brick
paving involves some maintenance - which is refreshing, because there is
gardening involved in having a garden.
Overall, this book shows that to have a low maintenance garden, you need to
think about the design and the essentials basics - such as weed-suppressing
membranes before you redo your garden, in order to save time afterwards.
Thoughtful and helpful.
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The English Cottage Garden is an illustrated celebration of that quintessentially English garden: the cottage garden and its intricate mix of beauty, utility, wildness, and domestication.
From its medieval beginnings as a yard for livestock and vegetables, the cottage garden became a retreat for the gentry of seventeenth-century and took on a new dimension of sophistication as well as retaining its traditional functional roots. Jane Taylor takes us on a wonderful tour through medicinal herbs, topiary, woodland and meadow flowers, and some more exotic plants.
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Accompanying the Channel 4 series of the same name, Matt James "leads the call for urbanites everywhere to pick up their trowels and 'Green the city, hide the flat, featureless grey!" This epitomises his approach, a rather engaging mixture of enthusiasm and genuine knowledge. In the series James takes a series of unpromising back yards and does manage to transform them, generally into charming romantic oases. Thankfully the desperate rush to reach some false deadline and surprise the owner with the transformation has been avoided and the gardens look genuine, not just the now-cliched makeover. At the end of each programme he steps back, announces his work to be fantastic and perfect, and the garden's owner generally echoes his words.
The book is rather similar. Enthusiastic and bubbly, but lacking in a clear structure. In the first chapters we seem to get a lot of James - his background, how he discovered the joys of horticulture and his cheeky chappy grin peering round various shrubs and grasses. There is a great deal of information here, but the layout could be clearer, the text more enticing to read. For instance, a chapter headed Choosing the Right Plants for You has a subsection Trees for the City Garden which leads straight on to Plants for Food with little mini-sections on Choosing what to Grow, Food Among the Flowers, Growing Fruit (strawberries, raspberries and boysenberries dealt with a rushed paragraph) and Growing Herbs.
There's a fun section at the back entitled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, although the Bad do include some plants he clearly admires (eg Wisteria some of whose varieties he variously describes as flowering profusely, highly fragrant, stunning and even perfect). Admittedly they may need some care or careful positioning, but "bad"? The Ugly is better and even includes some interesting surprises such as Fremontodendron, where he really lets rip against the plants he hates. Overall though the book is just a little bit too busy.The TV series is better.
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That's it for this category. Click here to suggest a general gardening book and we'll do our best to review it here.
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