Find gardening inspiration under the covers
If you’re looking for inspiration this autumn, you can find it in spades in a crop of new gardening books. Hannah Stephenson leafs through the best
With autumn comes books, lots of them. Celebrity autobiographies, new novels from top-notch authors and, best of all, a plethora of gardening books.
This year is no exception, so if you’re short on inspiration as to what to do with your green space, just step into a book shop or a well-stocked garden centre to check out the new titles which you can buy now or put on your Christmas list.
There’s everything from creating a new style to month-by-month guides on what you should be doing at any particular time and how to do it. Here’s just a few of the best…
:: Sarah Raven’s Cutting Garden Journal (Frances Lincoln, £14.99): An ideal Christmas present for those who like to keep tabs on what’s coming up in their garden when. This month-by-month journal of her first book, The Cutting Edge, is reborn with space to make notes of jobs to do, what’s in flower and other snippets of information you might need to note down. It features flowers of the month, along with advice on how to sow, grow and cut, establishing helpful monthly checklists. Beautifully presented in hardback, it’s not too bulky and ideal as a point of reference.
Sarah Raven’s Cutting Garden Journal
:: Cultivating Garden Style by Rochelle Greayer (Timber Press, £25): Whether your style is Enchanted Bohemian, Playful Pop, or somewhere in between, this book will help you identify your look, pick furniture and accessories, and create a space that feels definitively yours. Featuring the latest trends and state-of-the-art products, it’s for gardeners who want to make their outdoor spaces exciting and innovative.
Cultivating Garden Style by Rochelle Greayer
Gardeners’ World: The Veg Growers Almanac: Month By Month Planning And Planting by Martyn Cox (BBC Books, Oct 16, £9.99): With sage advice from old Gardeners’ World hands, coupled with tips on the best varieties to grow and timely advice on how best to look after your plot, this attractive collection blends practical advice with evocative writing and fascinating facts. Illustrated throughout with charming drawings and sketches.
Gardeners’ World: The Veg Growers Almanac: Month By Month Planning And Planting by Martyn Cox
:: The Writer’s Garden by Jackie Bennett (Frances Lincoln, Oct 2, £25): This glorious tome for gardeners, history buffs and enthusiastic readers alike reveals some of the lesser-known facts about famous authors and their fascination with gardens. Charles Dickens was a keen gardener and loved scarlet pelargoniums, while Roald Dahl loved orchids. Featuring landscapes ranging from Virginia Woolf’s rural Sussex idyll to Beatrix Potter’s hill-top farm in the Lake District, Bennett examines how the poet, writer or novelist derive a creative spirit from their gardens.
The Writer’s Garden by Jackie Bennett
:: The Gardener’s Year (Dorling Kindersley, £20): You never have to wonder what you should be doing in the garden month-by-month because this practical, easy-to-use book will give you all the information you need. Packed with timely tips and helpful advice, it’s full of planting ideas, reminders and how-tos for every season and area of the garden, including beds, borders and patios, and features an at-a-glance calendar showing each month’s jobs, including sowing, planting, watering, feeding, pruning and harvesting, plus illustrated step-by-steps of key techniques flag up handy gardening tips that can make all the difference.
The Gardener’s Year
:: The English Country House Garden by George Plumptre (Frances Lincoln, £25): This beautiful book could happily grace any coffee table with its wonderful pictures of English country house gardens of the 21st century. From the famed gardens of Hidcote, Sissinghurst and Great Dixter to the most dynamic modern creations from Piet Oudolf, Tom Stuart-Smith and Dan Pearson, the author treads a fascinating path through time across 25 of the most charismatic gardens, to show both the history of the landscapes and the idylls of contemporary designers.
The English Country House Garden by George Plumptre
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