Throughout history flowers have been an integral part of human survival and culture - as food, for medicine, to express feelings, as symbols, to commemorate and celebrate, and to decorate. Their shapes, colours, scents and textures have always attracted us, as they do animals and insects. Flowers are used as luxury spices (saffron), and as colouring and flavouring agents - marigolds fed to chickens make eggs more yellow and lavender was Elizabeth I's favourite flavour of jam. Flowers are full of symbolic meaning: violets represent modesty, daises purity and daffodils unrequited love. And they have always played an important role in culture through myths and legends, literature and the decorative arts. This delightful new book brings together 100 of the world's flowers to tell their remarkable stories. Each flower is richly illustrated in colour and accompanied by facts about each species and what role it has played in our culture and history.

The Netherlands is steeped in horticultural history and its gardens have long been a place for innovation and progressive thinking, exemplified by iconic figures such as the landscape architect Mien Ruys and naturalistic plant pioneer Piet Oudolf. In this book, Noel Kingsbury and Maayke de Ridder explore how the particularities of landscape, history and culture in the Netherlands have given rise to distinctive gardens and demonstrates how a new generation of Dutch designers are reimagining outdoor space in such a revolutionary way. At the heart of the story is a people intimately engaged with their surroundings, as proud of the feats of engineering used to reclaim their land from the sea as they are passionate about nature and biodiversity. This creative tension is played out in their parks and gardens: a clean, pared-back aesthetic contrasts with billowing planting; water is managed and made accessible with boardwalks; and meandering paths lead to inviting outbuildings for work and relaxation. These inspiring examples of sustainable, modern, liveable outdoor spaces will appeal to forward-looking garden makers wherever they live.

'This extraordinarily useful compendium should be required reading for anyone aspiring to ... a gorgeous garden.' - New York Times Book Review A stunning exploration of one of the hottest trends in garden design, nature-based planting with an eco-aware approach, featuring the work of leading designers such as Sean Hogan, Piet Oudolf, and Dan Pearson Forget the mild, manicured gardens of the past: planting today is undergoing a revolution in taste and aesthetics. This is the first comprehensive overview of a new planting approach that is wild and natural by nature, reflecting the global turn towards sustainability and the current zeitgeist in garden design. Featuring over 40 gardens - from a perennial meadow in East Sussex, England to a private, drought-resistant garden in Australia - each garden in this stunning book is brought to life with beautiful photography and insightful text.

This guide provides the ideas and know-how needed for creating a garden from scratch. Aimed at the novice gardener, the book takes you through every stage of the design, construction and planting process, helping to assess your needs and match them to your plot, budget and time available. Construction and planting techniques are illustrated in step-by-step projects that include building steps, planting a tree and installing a water feature. Notebook sections include grids and storyboards for designing individual features and planting schemes. A plant care troublehooters helps you to identify and treat common ailments and a calendar of essential tasks will help your garden look good all year round.

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.

Planting, by famed landscape architects Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury, is a groundbreaking moment in horticulture. It is the first book to share Oudolf s original planting plans and plant groupings and the only book to explicitly show how his gardens and landscapes are made. An intimate knowledge of plants is essential to the success of this approach and Planting makes Oudolf s considerable understanding of plant ecology and performance accessible, explaining how plants behave in different situations, what goes on underground, and which species make good neighbors. Extensive plant charts and planting plans will help you choose plants for their structure, color, and texture as well as the way they perform in the landscape. A detailed directory, with details each plant s life expectancy, the persistence of its seedheads, its tendency to spread, and propensity to self-seed, is an invaluable resource.Planting is an essential resource for designers and gardeners looking to create plant-rich, beautiful gardens that support biodiversity and nourish the human spirit."

Disheartened by the shrink-wrapped, Styrofoam-packed state of contemporary supermarket fruits and vegetables, many shoppers hark back to a more innocent time, to visions of succulent red tomatoes plucked straight from the vine, gleaming orange carrots pulled from loamy brown soil, swirling heads of green lettuce basking in the sun.

With "Hybrid," Noel Kingsbury reveals that even those imaginary perfect foods are themselves far from anything that could properly be called natural; rather, they represent the end of a millennia-long history of selective breeding and hybridization. Starting his story at the birth of agriculture, Kingsbury traces the history of human attempts to make plants more reliable, productive, and nutritious--a story that owes as much to accident and error as to innovation and experiment. Drawing on historical and scientific accounts, as well as a rich trove of anecdotes, Kingsbury shows how scientists, amateur breeders, and countless anonymous farmers and gardeners slowly caused the evolutionary pressures of nature to be supplanted by those of human needs--and thus led us from sparse wild grasses to succulent corn cobs, and from mealy, white wild carrots to the juicy vegetables we enjoy today. At the same time, Kingsbury reminds us that contemporary controversies over the Green Revolution and genetically modified crops are not new; plant breeding has always had a political dimension.

A powerful reminder of the complicated and ever-evolving relationship between humans and the natural world, "Hybrid" will give readers a thoughtful new perspective on--and a renewed appreciation of--the cereal crops, vegetables, fruits, and flowers that are central to our way of life.