"Catherine Horwood's book is a triumph, beautifully crafted by an author who has thoroughly researched and understood her subject. From start to finish, this publication gives us a real understanding of Beth's life. There is so much here to keep the reader gripped." - Gardens Illustrated Beth Chatto: A life with plants tells the story of the most influential British plantswoman of the past hundred years. Beth Chatto was the inspiration behind the ‘right plant, right place’ ethos that lies at the heart of modern gardening. She also wrote some of the best-loved gardening books of the twentieth century, among them The Dry Garden, The Damp Garden, and Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden. Some years before her death in May 2018, aged ninety-four, Beth authorized Catherine Horwood to write her biography, with exclusive access to her archive. Beth Chatto: A life with plants also includes extracts from Beth’s notebooks and diaries, never previously published, bringing Beth’s own distinctive and much-loved voice into the book. Most of the photographs, from Beth’s personal archives, have also never been seen in print before. For Beth’s legions of fans, Beth Chatto: A life with plants is the personal story behind her beliefs and the struggles and determination that brought her success. 

There is no shortage of books on how to look after houseplants but no one has shown us how and when and why these plants came to be in our homes. Catherine Horwood's combination of social history, plant history and the history of interior design explains why, as Flanders and Swann sung in the 1950s, 'the garden's full of furniture / and the house is full of plants.' In this fascinating book we learned how potted plants are as much subject to fashion as pieces of furniture. For the Victorians, it was the aspidistra in the front parlour, the Edwardians loved a palm, and, for today's millennials, no home is complete without the ubiquitous fiddle-leaf fig. This book show that there is little new when it comes to plants in the home. In the mid-18th century, Wedgwood created a market for special bulb pots and in the 1950s, some of Terence Conran's earliest designs were for houseplant containers. Across the ages, the choice of potted plants has been influenced by the layout of houses, the levels of dirt and pollution and the equipment to hand. Now, with so much choice, we seem happy to treat houseplants as disposables. This book gives a better understanding of the miracles that were once achieved with indoor plant displays, inspired by Sir Hugh Platt's 1608 vision of a garden 'within doores'. This new edition has been revised with new material added to bring the history of the houseplant and its massive explosion in popularity right up to date.

The rose is the world's favourite flower - and always has been. It is the greatest floral symbol of love and romance the world over, and touches people's hearts at many points in their lives as the flower most often chosen to celebrate significant milestones - weddings, anniversaries, births and deaths. This book traces the journey of the rose across the centuries, from battles to bouquets, charting its botanical, religious, literary and artistic history. From Cleopatra's rose-petal-filled bed to Nijinsky's Spectre de la rose, from the highly prized attar of rose oil so beloved by the ancient Persians to top-brand perfume labels today, and from Shakespearean myths about the Wars of the Roses to the significance of Queen Elizabeth I's embroidered dresses, Rose encapsulates the story of what makes this botanical family so loved. Using historical, literary and botanical sources from the world's major rose-growing nations, with vibrant illustrations from across the centuries and tales of medieval best-sellers, nurserymen's rivalries and changing tastes in the flower bed, Rose will be a delight to read for both the gardener and non-gardener alike.

The British have always been concerned about accent, appearance and class, but at no time during the twentieth century was the cliche 'keeping up appearances' more to the point than during the 1920s and 1930s. 'It is easier to recruit for monasteries and convents than to induce ...a British officer to walk through Bond Street in a golfing cap on an afternoon in May' commented George Bernard Shaw in 1903. This book looks at how the middle classes chose to dress themselves during the period, and shows how those choices were coloured just as much by the advent of mass production, methods of shopping, economic stringency, snobbery, and the influence of America, as by personal aesthetics. Drawing on a range of primary sources, including Mass Observation records, it vividly records the experiences of dress shopping during the interwar years, and reveals the importance of the dress codes to which both men and women adhered, and the social conventions which they demonstrated.