The Times Best Gardening Books of 2022 Ornamental plants are the cornerstone of our gardens and we are spoiled for choice with literally tens of thousands of hardy beauties from which to select. But we take them absolutely for granted, not for a moment realising that every plant has a fascinating tale to tell. Wild Edens sets the record straight. With global coverage, each of the nine richly illustrated chapters explores a plant biodiversity hotspot. The reader is transported on a visually stunning and fascinating voyage of discovery which reveals our garden favourites - as well as some species that should be more widely cultivated - in their natural habitats, from daffodils from Andalusia and tulips from the Tien Shan, to monkey puzzles from Chile and rhododendrons from the Himalayas, lilies from Japan and proteas from South Africa. Because the authors have been to the hotspots, each chapter opens with their personal reflections on the landscape and spirit of place, and closes with their selection of prime locations. In between, the informative yet approachable text tells of the plants' 'forgotten stories'. Of the landscapes which are their home, the adventures of how and when they were discovered and by whom, the reasons why they were collected, their impact on garden fashions and trends, etc. Wild Edens brings another dimension of interest and understanding to plants and gardens, as well as being a premium armchair traveller's guide to the natural world of garden plants.

Gardens have never been as important as they are today. The breadth of styles and types is hugely varied. Everything goes, whether inspired by the past or looking towards the future, from traditional vegetable plots to vertical gardens and from nature-filled designs to sleek, modernist creations. Choosing what suits your space can be a daunting prospect and everyone, even the professionals, needs help to realize opportunities and create outdoor spaces in tune with their personal needs and dreams. A garden is what we make it: there is no right or wrong way and each is unique. Richly illustrated by the photos of award-winning photographer Marianne Majerus and with illuminating text by landscape architect Heidi Howcroft, this book shows what is possible for every type of garden, from challenging small spaces to expansive plots. Design tools are explained, planting styles explored, and inspiration is drawn from a wide variety of locations and climates to appeal to garden owners and designers everywhere. The book is not only a companion to Garden Design: A Book of Ideas but is also a valuable style catalogue and sourcebook in its own right, encouraging and inspiring readers to discover their own garden style - be it contemporary or traditional, cottage-style or urban minimalist.

A food forest is a productive landscape developed around a mix of trees and perennials. Rooted in permaculture principles, this integrated approach to gardening incorporates a variety of plants such as fruit and nut trees, shrubs, vines, and perennial herbs and vegetables. Food forests can help increase biodiversity, protect valuable habitat for beneficial insects, and promote food security and resilience, all while providing an abundant harvest. The Food Forest Handbook is a practical manual for the design and management of a home-scale perennial polyculture garden. Simple, straightforward instructions guide the reader through: Getting started - site assessment and planning Tending the forest garden - maintaining soil health, succession planning, , mulching, pruning and more The fruits of your labor - crop profiles, harvest, storage, nutrition and recipes. This timely book makes the concept of food forests accessible to everyone. Focusing on the potential of perennial polyculture to enhance local food systems, The Food Forest Handbook shows the reader how to mix and match plants in unique combinations to establish bountiful landscapes and create genuine self-reliance in years to come. Darrell Frey is the owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a five-acre permaculture farm, solar greenhouse and market garden located in Western Pennsylvania. He has been permaculture teacher for thirty years, and is the author of Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm. Michelle Czolba is co-owner of Pittsburgh Permaculture and co-founded the Hazelwood Food Forest. She has extensive experience in the design and maintenance of perennial polyculture.

Garden of Your Dreams is an inspirational and practical guide to complete outdoor transformations - from the smallest urban courtyard to a rural paradise. Let award-winning garden designer and landscape expert from Better Homes & Gardens Charlie Albone walk you through the process of turning your outdoor space into your own personal oasis. Start by identifying your dream design style, then learn how to make a plan that works for your site, budget and aspirations. Create an entertaining space you are proud of, prepare the soil and then the real fun begins - planting! Packed full of ideas and inspirational how-to as well as Charlie's personal plant guide, Garden of Your Dreams is the ideal first step to dreaming up your own outdoor transformation.

This eloquent and powerful book combines poetry and pragmatism to teach the language of landscape. Anne Whiston Spirn, author of the award-winning The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design, argues that the language of landscape exists with its own syntax, grammar, and metaphors, and that we imperil ourselves by failing to learn to read and speak this language. To understand the meanings of landscape, our habitat, is to see the world differently and to enable ourselves to avoid profound aesthetic and environmental mistakes. Offering examples that range across thousands of years and five continents, Spirn examines urban, rural, and natural landscapes. She discusses the thought of renowned landscape authors-Thomas Jefferson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Frederick Law Olmsted, Lawrence Halprin-and of less well known pioneers, including Australian architect Glenn Murcutt and Danish landscape artist C. Th. Sorensen. She discusses instances of great landscape designers using landscape fluently, masterfully, and sometimes cynically. And, in a probing analysis of the many meanings of landscape, Spirn shows how one person's ideal landscape may be another's nightmare, how Utopian landscapes can be dark. There is danger when we lose the connection between a place and our understanding of it, Spirn warns, and she calls for change in the way we shape our environment, based on the notions of nature as a set of ideas and landscape as the expression of action and ideas in place.

"Creating a garden doesn't need to be complicated." This is the promise from Adam Frost, BBC Gardeners' World presenter and winner of multiple Chelsea Flower Show gold medals. Create your dream garden with a practical, uncomplicated approach to gardening that suits your lifestyle, personality, and budget! Whether you have a small garden in the city or have hundreds of acres in the countryside, you can create an idyllic garden in whatever setting you choose with this gardening guide. This clear and practical gardening book will show you how to easily design a garden that reflects your practical needs, lifestyle, budget, personality, soil, and climate. Here's what you'll find inside: - Work through Q&A sessions, build mood boards and plant lists, and develop the essential skills to design, plot, and shape your space - Step-by-step photography shows you the techniques you need to build your garden - all the hard-landscaping skills you might need, such as building a brick wall, laying paving or decking, or installing fencing or a water feature - You are shown how those skills can be applied to different garden projects, from creating a seating area to building a simple water feature. You can mix and match projects according to your available space, tailor them to your climate and soil type, and gradually build your perfect garden, bit by bit - A month-by-month guide shows you how to enjoy your garden space and checklists helps you with easy garden maintenance and development Designing your garden shouldn't be a daunting task. This gardening book will help you understand your space so you can create something that works for you - your time constraints, your budget, your family requirements, the sort of plants you like, and the effect you want to achieve. Following a practical, no-nonsense approach, this gardening guide strips away complex design concepts and focuses on your needs to help you find your own garden style, even if you're clueless about where to start. Discover simple garden design ideas that work equally well for a complete garden makeover or an elegant but low-maintenance garden. Create your perfect garden without breaking the bank, with an easy-to-follow planting guide that is perfect for beginner and seasoned gardeners alike.

A showcase of Britain's most extraordinary gardens and landscapes from the twentieth century to present day. 100 20th-Century Gardens and Landscapes highlights the evolution of gardens and landscapes over the past century, tracing how these distinctive creations complemented buildings of their period. Entries in this book are grouped in chronological periods, documenting changing styles and techniques in a visual timeline. The examples chosen take the story from the Arts and Crafts garden and the garden city, through the landscapes created for mid-century housing and the new towns, to the low-maintenance gardens of the 1980s and contemporary trends for community and wildlife gardens. Designed landscapes were often integral to the conception of twentieth-century developments; the inclusion of a handful of particularly successful landscapes for memorial gardens, offices, industry, transport and parks demonstrate a changing attitude to public green space during the century and its increasing importance as private gardens have become ever smaller. Designers and architects such as Piet Oudolf, Charles Jencks, Frederick Gibberd, Geoffrey Jellicoe, Vita Sackville-West and Gertrude Jekyll are all featured, alongside more detailed essays on the history of gardens, planting styles, the importance of modern landscapes, and the career of Geoffrey Jellicoe. The text is written by architectural, landscape and garden historians including Elain Harwood, Barbara Simms and Alan Powers. Beautifully illustrated throughout with photography, illustrations and garden plans, this book is ideal for gardeners and landscape lovers alike.

*** 'With an approachable layout and excellent illustrations, including both photographs and line drawings, this book is just the thing for someone discovering the pastime and would be ideal for those who have just acquired a garden of some size. Topics covered range from plant biology and propagation, to everyday garden care, fruit and vegetables and growing under cover.' The English Garden Keen amateur gardeners and aspiring professionals can learn from the expertise of the RHS with this handy guide. It doesn't matter if you're an old hand at gardening or just starting out, there are always things to discover and opportunities to improve, whether it's mastering a new technique or brushing up on your botany. RHS Gardening School is the perfect guide for gardeners who want to learn. Inside you'll find chapters on: Understanding plants Everyday garden care Problem solving Planting design Gardening through the year and much more. Hands-on guidance and step-by-step instructions explain topics such as pruning, pest and diseases, weed removal and caring for lawns. Expert gardeners explain the underlying principles in plain English, while clear diagrams and beautiful photographs inspire and inform. This revised edition will have a fresh new look with new illustrations and photographs and an easy-to-navigate layout making it an ideal handbook for the new gardener. Become a better, smarter, more productive gardener with this complete guide to horticulture in one handy book.

The author has analyzed the aesthetic and horticultural elements in ten representative cottage gardens eight in England and two in the United States. Her spectacular photographs render the look and atmosphere of these gardens, while her text focuses on easily grown, readily available plants that are adaptable to a wide variety of climatic and soil conditions. In the back of the book completely updated for this new edition may be found specific horticultural information on a wide variety of cottage garden plants commonly available in the United States, glossaries of Latin and common names, and a list of sources for old rose varieties. The gardens in this beautiful book are not those of the great estates of England, manicured by staffs of professional gardeners. They are, instead, labors of love on the part of individual homeowners, many of whom started with bleak, rubble-strewn lots and went on to create the enchanted settings pictured here."

Do you dream of transforming your back garden into a romantic retreat? Would you like to make a modern-day Utopia on your balcony? Is your ideal outdoor space a minimalist design with easy-to-care-for plants or a family garden with room to grow culinary herbs? Whatever your desire, the Garden Design Bible has a plan that you can adapt to your own space. Choose from 40 off-the-peg designs, or mix and match elements from several to create your ideal garden. Each of the designs is fully illustrated and has a comprehensive plant list and planting diagram. With a huge range of plants, styles and uses, this inspirational yet practical book is the next best thing to hiring a gardener!

Planting design is the selection and use of plants to achieve a designer's objectives. There are now many new and interesting planting ideas and fashions, but municipal planting in particular and some gardens as well, can be pretty dire through lack of careful planting design. What is needed for all garden designers - who may well have come to design via a deep interest in plants - is an understanding of the basics of this vitally important design discipline: designs are three-dimensional, to be walked in and round, and viewed from all sides; designs will change over time; plants live and die and need to be tended for maximum effect; there is a huge choice of plants, a working knowledge of which takes experience. There are many pitfalls to be met in planting, therefore, which can be largely avoided by getting the basics of planting design right. This book will help the designer to build a solid foundation for their future success and experience

Turn the outdoor space you may not own into one that makes you feel at home. A gardening book unlike any other, RHS How to Garden When You Rent brings together projects, inspiration, and handy know-how specifically tailored to people who rent. With chapters designed around lease lengths, readers will find something for their outdoor space, whether they plan to rent for just a few months or expect to stay in their home for a several years or more. Written by Matthew Pottage, this must-have book combines creative ideas with serious gardening expertise - all without breaking the bank or needing countless hours of hands-on work. Keep your landlord happy and your garden in good shape with plenty of tips, tricks, and techniques for good garden maintenance, and discover ways of turning even the most unloved balcony, yard, or urban garden into a lush, welcoming space that you, your flatmates, and your friends can enjoy for as long as you choose to live there.

To visit Chanticleer is to step into a world of beauty and creativity that few other gardens can match. Each of its many areas - including formal borders, woodland glades, and a fantasy garden planted among ruins - offers a unique embodiment of colour, texture, and form. The sources of this distinctive blend of inspiration and practical craft are at the heart of The Art of Gardening. In these pages, you'll learn techniques specific to different conditions and plant palettes; how to use hardscape materials in a fresh way; and how to achieve the perfect union between plant and site. And Rob Cardillo's exquisite photographs of exciting combinations will be sure to stimulate your own creativity. Whether you're already under Chanticleer's spell or have yet to visit, The Art of Gardening will enable you to bring the special magic that pervades this most artful of gardens into your own home landscape.

A major monograph on the Dutch garden designer, featuring his gardens and the largest collection of his drawings ever published Step into a Piet Oudolf garden and you are transported into a dreamlike meadowscape, filled with perennials, seasonal color, and texture. Made in close collaboration with Oudolf, this book showcases gardens throughout his career and across the globe - from New York's acclaimed High Line to the newly planted Vitra Campus in Germany. The book offers fresh insight into the work and creative practice of Oudolf, both from a horticultural and artistic perspective, showcasing high-profile and lesser-known gardens, including Chicago's Lurie Garden, Hauser & Wirth Somerset and Menorca, Venice Biennale, Singer Museum, Belle Isle in Detroit, Noma, and others. It offers unprecedented insight into his design process, working methods, and inspirations, and features original sketches and drawings - many of which are published here for the first time. This major new monograph is significant not only for its breadth and the largest collection of Oudolf's drawings ever published, but also for its inclusion of brand-new work, together with newly commissioned essays that place his work in context and offer fresh perspective on his career and significance. The book also includes gatefolds and tip-ins to explain key designs.

'A remarkable book from one of our greatest plant experts' DAILY TELEGRAPH With a new introduction by Monty Don In revealing what worked in her own garden, Beth Chatto passes on a wealth of advice gleaned from her personal experience. She provides detailed - and accessible - ideas on garden management, plans for every type of soil and situation, nearly twenty specially tailored lists to help with planting in various conditions, and descriptions of over a thousand suitable plants for making the most of damp ground.