Admirably and endlessly discursive, the essayist explores Orwell's ideas of happiness and joy - 'the right to live, not just to exist' - that permeate his writing and which are exemplified b... read more
The ideal present for that rare breed of person mostly to be found head-down in the compost bin, with just a pair of legs with gumboot finials waving ecstatically at passers-by or spouses, l... read more
Mastering the art of minimal intervention. We don't know if Mr McGregor would approve but Dowding is THE no-dig guru, pioneering this approach and growing vast and succulent vegetables since... read more
The last decade's archaeological research in the grounds of Hanwell have revealed, inter alia, the ruins of the 'House of Diversion' referred to by Robert Plot in 1678, where "a ball is toss... read more
Unusual and interesting plants photographed and described in their natural habitats, often in very remote places - anyone remember the heady uplands of tulip and meadows of fritillary in Gar... read more
Thorogood's version of 'up hill and down dale' takes him over cliffs and up volcanoes - all in the pursuit of pitcher plants, irises, orchids... Illustrated by the author.
Skims through a dozen gardens in all their glory, green or golden, all over England. Nichols is a fabulous photographer of gardens and this will be a visual feast.
Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and Pierre Magnol to Sir David Attenborough, via Lady Gaga... The author is, amongst other roles, the president of the Linnaean Society.
A slim but energetic reminiscence about the gardens the Bannerpeople have made as a couple: they are now three years into making their fourth, at their Elizabethan manor house in Somerset. E... read more
Both a brief history of gardening and a where-do-we-go-from-here manual: Moore shows us not only what we think a garden is but why we think it ought to be thus and so. He's an advocate of a ... read more
The perpetual appeal of walled gardens, let alone Venetian ones - private, invisible to those outside, with a delicious water gate giving onto a canal, and exhaling drifts of orange blossom ... read more
A scholarly approach to the gardens of the Petit Trianon and Malmaison, looking at their design and use as liminal spaces under Marie-Antoinette, the empresses Josephine, Marie-Louise and Eu... read more
The new 154-acre RHS garden in Salford, Greater Manchester, in the former grounds of Worsley New Hall, designed by Tom Stuart-Smith. Work began on the garden in 2015 and it opened in 2021.
With its grottoes, terraces and fountains, the Villa d'Este has arguably the finest garden of the Italian Renaissance. Stunning photographs of both villa and garden, with a text by the direc... read more
With terraces overlooking the Severn estuary, water gardens and an enormous pillared pergola, the house was an Edwardian dream that fell into decay. Luckily it has been restored, and its gar... read more
A short catalogue of the small but perfectly formed Freud exhibition at the Garden Museum. Drawings, oil sketches, paintings, of flowers, leaves, his Zimmerlinde, tatty buddleia-filled back ... read more
From the back yard of a rough childhood to the fine gardens he has created professionally, Hamer shares the restorative consolations of the natural world and horticulture.
Published between 1737 and 1739, Blackwell's superb guide to medicinal plants was conceived as a money-making solution when her husband was in debtors' prison. All 500 plates are finely repr... read more
Liberated from formality, the looser landscape gardening of the C18th fizzed with grottoes, follies and temples of course, but also with deer pens, stables, dovecotes, boathouses, etc. Many ... read more
Modern British artists in the inter-war period: Evelyn Dunbar, Douglas Percy Bliss, Charles Mahoney, Gilbert Spencer, Clare Leighton, Eric Ravilious, Tirzah Garwood et alia. A slim catalogue... read more
These small utopias were described by one interviewee - a gardener with an impressively Eeyore-like dispostiion - as '51 per cent hard work, and 49 per cent disappointment'. They've never be... read more