A selection of the best garden writing to appear this month…
By Kelly Norris, Timber Press, £15
Something of a love letter to plants, Norris’s collection of exhaustive plant descriptions oozes enthusiasm and practical experience. He could make the most mundane of plants sound exciting and here he champions scores of plants for different garden purposes. The depth of description is such that it leaves you wishing for more plant illustrations of the plants that he is so passionate about. If ever there was a book to make a gardener feel like they need to know more plants, this is it.
By Thomas Etty & Lorraine Harrison, Ivy Press, £18.99
Part miscellany, part seed catalogue, part plant encyclopedia, this is a curious book that has its moments. Hundreds of old varieties of fruit and vegetables are described with colourful anecdotes, historical nuggets of trivia and botanical illustrations. The lack of imagery is frustrating though, with hundreds of quirky sounding crops teasingly described but not many of them illustrated. Particularly good is the section on herbs, which presents facts, tips and trivia about 60 garden herbs. The introductory notes to each vegetable are also entertaining and the smattering of cultivation tips is useful and concise.
By The Chanticleer Gardeners, Timber Press, £25
Take an ‘all seasons’ tour of the Chanticleer public gardens, Pennsylvania, and pick up lots of handy tips from the gardeners along the way. That is the premise of this useful book, which bridges practicality with style to create both an entertaining read for the keen, hands-on gardener and an attractive volume to browse in front of the fire. Numerous anecdotes from the gardeners at Chanticleer provide insight into how they have created the beautiful pockets of garden shown. As well as scenes of grandeur – the garden is a vast 35 acres – there are many examples of creating impact with plants on a small scale, too.
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