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Bodil Malmsten

'In the same way as there's a partner for every person, there's a place. All you have to do is find the one that's yours among the billions that belong to someone else, you have to be awake, you have to choose.' 
 
With this conviction in mind, acclaimed Swedish writer Bodil Malmsten abandons her native country at the age of fifty-five and settles in Brittany. 
 
At the heart of this memoir is the conviction that the happiness to be found in Finistère will not allow itself to be, cannot be, expressed in writing. Embroidered around this seeming paradox are poignant, outraged and thought-provoking observations on the widest range of subjects: how not to buy plants, the elicit pleasures of bargain-hunting, the misery of writer's block, social democracy, racism, tulipomania, the stubbornness of bank managers, the controlling of moles and slugs, death, political hypocrisy, the delights of wild weather. Malmsten's passion and humour shine through every episode she describes, however minor, offering the reader a window onto a solitary life at once touching, thought-provoking and, occasionally, hilarious.

The Price of Water in Finistère

Raynor Winn

Nature holds the answers for Raynor and her husband Moth. After walking 630 homeless miles along The Salt Path, living on the windswept and wild English coastline; the cliffs, the sky and the chalky earth now feel like their home. 
 
Moth has a terminal diagnosis, but against all medical odds, he seems revitalised in nature. Together on the wild coastal path, with their feet firmly rooted outdoors, they discover that anything is possible. 
 
Now life beyond the Salt Path awaits and they come back to four walls, but the sense of home is illusive and returning to normality is proving difficult - until an incredible gesture by someone who reads their story changes everything. 
 
A chance to breathe life back into a beautiful farmhouse nestled deep in the Cornish hills; rewilding the land and returning nature to its hedgerows, becomes their saving grace and their new path to follow. 
 
The Wild Silence is a story of hope triumphing over despair, of lifelong love prevailing over everything. It is a luminous account of the human spirit's instinctive connection to nature, and how vital it is for us all.

The Wild Silence

Len Howard

Enter the secret lives of Britain's ordinary garden birds and the brilliant, unconventional woman who opened her doors to them. 
 
In the late 1930s, Len Howard packed up her life in London, bought a plot of land in Sussex and built herself a little house there. This was to be Bird Cottage, a place where the doors of the house were open to the birds of the garden – great tits, blue tits, robins, blackbirds, willow warblers and many others. Len lived the rest of her life alongside her bird neighbours, with some sleeping in her bedroom and many flitting in and out all day long. 
 
This is the book she wrote about the birds – a study not just of their behaviour but their individual personalities. We learn about their intelligence, emotional lives, and characters, their capacity for play and humour, the range of their song, their likes and dislikes, and their bond with Len. 
 
Enchanting, life-enriching, revelatory and completely original, this is a gorgeous evocation of a life lived in intimate contact with nature and a book about birds unlike any other. 
 
‘A unique, engaging and elegant insight into the lives of our precious and magical songbirds’ Arthur Parkinson 
 
‘A quiet revelation of attentiveness and sympathy. It impressed and moved me very much’ Steven Lovatt, author of Birdsong in a Time of Silence

Birds as Individuals

Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively has always been a keen gardener. This book is partly a memoir of her own life in gardens: the large garden at home in Cairo where she spent most of her childhood, her grandmother's garden in a sloping Somerset field, then two successive Oxfordshire gardens of her own, and the smaller urban garden in the North London home she lives in today. It is also a wise, engaging and far-ranging exploration of gardens in literature, from Paradise Lost to Alice in Wonderland, and of writers and their gardens, from Virginia Woolf to Philip Larkin.

Life in the Garden

Claire Ratinon

A powerful work of memoir and storytelling that will change the way we think about the natural world. 
 
Like many diasporic people of colour, Claire Ratinon grew up feeling cut off from the natural world. She lived in cities, reluctant to be outdoors and stuck with the belief that success and status could fill the space where belonging was absent. 
 
But a chance encounter with a rooftop farm was the start of a journey that caused her to rethink the life she'd been creating and her beliefs about who she ought to be. Enlivened, she turned her hand to growing food in London before finding herself yearning for a small parcel of land to call her own. 
 
Unearthed tells the story of her leaving the city for the English countryside - and her first garden - in the hope of forging a pathway towards the embrace of the natural world and a sense of belonging cultivated on her own terms. 
 
'Ratinon's story will change hearts and minds' Alice Vincent 
 
'A beautiful book about nature...I recommend it' Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish)

Unearthed

On race and roots, and how the soil taught me I belong

Gertrude Jekyll

This is a celebration of the beauties and possibilities of Heliotrope and Honeysuckle, Auricula, Snapdragon, Spanish Iris and Corydalis, and all the other plants that enliven and exalt the gardens of England. Gertrude Jekyll gives good advice on how to make a garden a place of repose and pleasure. Writing with enthusiasm on the colours and scents of flowers, on the frustrations (and delights) of weeding and on the debasing influence of flower shows, she is practical, wise and entertaining in equal measure. 
 
Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English countryside - but it has profoundly shaped us too.It has provoked a huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and people who live and work on the land - as well as those who are travelling through it.English Journeys celebrates this long tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man's relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers).

The Beauties of a Cottage Garden

Carol Klein

Carol Klein is one of Britain's best loved horticulturists, and for decades gardening has been at the heart of her extraordinary life. From her childhood adventures in Manchester to her first experiments in plantswomanship at Glebe Cottage, and from training as an artist and a teacher, and then finding an entirely unexpected career as one of Britain’s most beloved television presenters, in this long-awaited memoir Carol tells the story of the people, places and plants that have shaped her life. 
 
Exploring why our relationship with the natural worldis so important, and how it brings joy, creativity and good health to our lives, Carol also offers irresistible insights on her favourite flowers and plants, and how to help them flourish. A story of a life lived happily amongst the greenery, this book is the perfect companion for anyone who has sought solace in the natural world.

Hortobiography

Frances Tophill

A Year in a Small Garden follows Frances Tophill as she creates her new garden in a terraced house in Devon. Working in a small space, the book documents her journey to bring life to her garden, including tips and tricks for you to achieve similar results in whatever spaces you have at home. 
 
The book is structured around the stages of building her small garden, and branches out to include small community gardens Frances works with, as well as projects to create in small spaces at home - with a focus on growing food and planting in a sustainable, environmentally friendly way. 
 
Featuring new photography shot throughout the year, as well as Frances's own journal and garden notebooks, this book will not only give you an insight into Frances's journey creating her first garden - but will help you create a beautiful, productive, garden at home.

Gardeners’ World: A Year in a Small Garden

Creating a Beautiful Garden in Any Space

Christine Walkden

A Year in Christine's Garden is the utterly down-to-earth account of one woman's passion for plants. Recounting stories from her hectic life in horticulture, Christine Walkden's diary is a heartwarming account of octogenarian neighbours, living with a film crew and helping friends with their gardening needs. 
 
Reflecting all the charm of her BBC2 television series, Christine's narrative paints a picture of the day-to-day beauty that surrounds her. She likes being outside, she likes walking her dog Tara, she likes watching the light change and she enjoys those little moments when everything seems right in the world. 
 
With irrepressible enthusiasm, she interweaves tips and advice to prove that the best gardens are approachable and achievable. Forget fashion, forget trends - Christine's garden is about no-nonsense planting and growing what you enjoy. 
 
As the year progresses, this warm, but frank diary brings to life all the moments of pride, excitement, relaxation and laugh-out-loud fun that make Christine's garden a haven of contentment.

A Year in Christine's Garden

Mark Wallington

Mark Wallington has a dream. He is going to change the face of British comedy. 
 
Unfortunately for the residents of north London, he's going to finance this dream by becoming a gardener. 
 
The result is The Day Job, an account of a year spent working in other people's gardens: people like Mrs Fleming who is convinced there is buried treasure in the bottom bed; Mr Walters who is trying to create a fascist state policed by gnomes in his well-guarded plot in Gospel Oak; Mrs Glover who is probably the most attractive woman living in Britain; and poor Mr Nugent, who likes to save his urine in jam jars and pour it over his compost. 
 
Over four seasons Wallington crosses Hampstead Heath from job to job. He survives brushes with the evil contract gardeners who keep trying to knock him off his bicycle. He strives to impress literary agent Herman Gapp who might represent him - depending on what sort of job he does on Gapp's Alpine Terrace. He even finds time to fall for a housecleaner-cum-actor named Helen, as he becomes part of a strange band of artistes, each with a day job of their own, all waiting for that first break. 
 
This is the story of long nights spent in the back room of a pub trying to write unsolicited scripts, and of much longer days spent trying to understand the British and their strange obsession with gardening.

The Day Job

Adventures of a Jobbing Gardener

Susan Orlean

Susan Orlean first met John Laroche when visiting Florida to write for the New Yorker about his arrest for stealing rare ghost orchids from a nature reserve. Fascinated both by Laroche and the world she uncovered of orchid collectors and growers, she stayed on, to write this magical exploration of obsession and the strange world both of the orchid obsessives and of Florida, that haunting and weird 'debatable land' of swamps and condos, retirement communities and real-estate scams. 
 
The world of the orchid hunters, breeders and showmen, their rivalries, vendettas and crimes, smuggling, thefts and worse provide the backdrop to a fascinating exploration of one of the byways of human nature, the obsessive world of the collector, and the haunting beauty of the flowers themselves.

The Orchid Thief

Andrea Wulf

One January morning in 1734, cloth merchant Peter Collinson hurried down to the docks at London's Custom House to collect cargo just arrived from John Bartram in the American colonies. But it was not bales of cotton that awaited him, but plants and seeds... 
 
Over the next forty years, Bartram would send hundreds of American species to England, where Collinson was one of a handful of men who would foster a national obsession and change the gardens of Britain forever: Philip Miller, author of the bestselling Gardeners Dictionary; the Swede Carl Linnaeus, whose standardised botanical nomenclature popularised botany; the botanist-adventurer Joseph Banks and his colleague Daniel Solander who both explored the strange flora of Tahiti and Australia on Captain Cook's Endeavour. 
 
This is the story of these men - friends, rivals, enemies, united by a passion for plants. Set against the backdrop of the emerging empire and the uncharted world beyond, The Brother Gardeners tells the story how Britain became a nation of gardeners.

The Brother Gardeners

Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession

Marc Hamer

Beloved author Marc Hamer writes about finding refuge in his tiny back garden in this highly original story of childhood, old age, and the restorative power of gardens. As a child, he kindled a deep love of the earth by watching plants and insects and exploring the world through a stack of old encyclopaedias he found in the shed. Now an old man, he creates a garden for himself in the neglected plot behind his house. 
 
A little book with a big heart: the insights glow as vivid as a flowerbed. If you want to be inspired, or you've lost your belief in the goodness of this world, this could be for you. 
 
'A sublime meditation on life, love, nature and family, woven with the wisdom gained through a life well lived' Lee Schofield, author of Wild Fell 
 
'A book of great but tender power' Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast 
 
'Patterned with Hamer's gifts for observation, compression, and tone' New Yorker 
 
'Rich and tender' New York Times

Spring Rain

Wild flowers are a great passion for Carol, and for the TV show this year she’s travelling the length and breadth of the country to find the most exquisite flora occurring naturally in our woodlands, hedgerows, meadows and moors, and then she sets off in search of their cultivated cousins, and shows us how to grow them in our own gardens. 
 
In her accompanying book, Carol delves into the story of each plant, full of myth, legend and country lore, and as always shares her practical expertise, passing on hints and tips, including which variations to go for, how and where to plant, and what with, for the most spectacular results. 
 
Containing thirty two of Britain's favourite wild flowers and their home-grown descendents, structured by season and illustrated with Jonathan Buckley’s amazing photographs, this book of botanical wonders will inspire, surprise and inform gardeners of all levels.

Wild Flowers

Nature's own to garden grown

Pocket clothbound volumes from the world's greatest poets, and with a stunning range of anthologies. Each volume has an elegant jacket, full cloth sewn binding, silk ribbon marker and headbands, with gold stamping on front and spine and decorative endpapers. In size, price and presentation they make ideal gifts and are a joy to read and collect. More than eighty titles in print.

Contents include poems on Paradises, Gardens of Love, Gardens in the Mind, Gardens and Seasons, Flowers, Gardeners, The Work of the Garden, Gardens of the Wild, City Gardens, Public Gardens, Ruined Gardens, and A Garden of Gardens. Contributors include John Milton, Ovid, E.E. Cummings, Thom Gunn, John Donne, James Merrill, Wallace Stevens, Robert Browning, Shakespeare, and many others.

Garden Poems

Jenny Uglow

Did the Romans have rakes? Did the monks get muddy? Did the potato seem really, really weird when it arrived on our shores? 
 
This lively 'potted' history of gardening in Britain takes us on a garden tour from the thorn hedges around prehistoric settlements to the rage for ornamental grasses and 'outdoor rooms' today. It tracks down the ordinary folk who worked the earth - the apprentice boys and weeding women, the florists and nursery gardeners - as well as aristocrats and grand designers and famous plant-hunters. 
 
Coloured by Jenny Uglow's own love for plants, and brought to life in the many vivid illustrations, it deals not only with flowery meads, grottoes and vistas, landscapes and ha-has, parks and allotments, but tells you, for example, how the Tudors made their curious knots; how housewives used herbs to stop freckles; how the suburbs dug for victory in World War II. 
 
With a brief guide to particular historic or evocative gardens open to the public, this is a book to put in your pocket when planning a summer day out - but also to read in your deckchair with a glass of cold wine, when dead-heading is simply too much.

A Little History of British Gardening

Dave Goulson

'Go on, have a flutter! Take a few tips from the new book by biologist Dave Goulson and it's a safe bet that beautiful butterflies will start gathering in your garden' 
Daily Mail 
 
 
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Sting In The Tale comes this practical guide to creating a paradise for pollinators. 
 
There are twenty six different species of bumblebees to be found in the UK, of around 250 species worldwide. Bumblebees are among the most important of our insects; these superb pollinators ensure that wildflowers set seed and reappear each year, and that our vegetable and fruit crops give us bountiful harvests. With the decline in the populations of our wild bees, these beloved creatures need looking after more than ever. 
 
Gardening for Bumblebees shows you how you can provide a refuge for bumblebees to feed, breed and thrive. No matter how large or small your space is, Dave Goulson shows you how you can make a pollinator-friendly haven. In this book you will learn the best trees, shrubs and flowers for pollinators, how to create the perfect nest and breeding site, and the best ways to control pests. Gardening For Bumblebees will encourage and inspire gardeners and allotmenters alike to make their patch more bee friendly. 
 
Praise for Dave Goulson 
 
'Ideal for filling the garden with a happy hum' 
Tiffany Daneff, Country Life 
 
'Goulson reminds himself that he 'began studying bumblebees not because they are important pollinators but because they are fascinating, because they behave in interesting and mysterious ways, and because they are rather loveable' 
Hannah Rosefield, Literary Review

Gardening for Bumblebees

A Practical Guide to Creating a Paradise for Pollinators

Arthur Parkinson

Most of us want a dog, or a cat, or a pony when we are young &ndash; but for Arthur Parkinson, it was always hens. Growing up in an ex-mining town in Nottinghamshire, the other kids in the playground called him 'Chicken Boy'. The quiet fulfilment of keeping hens became his sanctuary, a tonic for mental and physical health, a connection with his family and the natural world. Illustrated with Arthur's own characterful watercolours and photographs of his &lsquo;girls&rsquo;, Chicken Boy is a one-of-a-kind memoir of a life in nature.

Chicken Boy

My Life With Hens

This charming insight into what each season and month of the year brings for a cottage garden will capture the imagination and inspire any gardener (expert or novice) to get out and about, grab a spade and get your hands dirty! Written by the BBC's Carol Klein, full of practical advice and tips, and full of stunning photography, this is a book truly to savour... 
 
'Her energy, knowledge and enthusiasm are an inspiration in every month of the year, and this very special book will be a real gem for all garden lovers.' -- Radio Times 
'Beautifully designed, this one is too good to miss!' -- Home & Country 
'Vibrant, informative, inspirational and personal... Klein's heartfelt love poem to her beautiful garden.' -- Gardens Magazine 
'A delight to read' -- ***** Reader review 
'A wonderful garden book from a wonderful gardener' -- ***** Reader review 
'What can I say? I bought it when it first came out in 2011 and it STILL hasn't made it on to a bookshelf as I am constantly dipping into it' -- ***** Reader review 
'A must have for gardeners old and new' -- ***** Reader review 
'A wonderful book which I found hard to put down' -- ***** Reader review 
'So inspiring!' -- ***** Reader review 
 
*********************************************************************************************** 
In this wonderful gardening journal, the BBC's Carol Klein, with characteristic warmth, eloquence and infectious enthusiasm, tells us the story of a year in her beautiful garden at Glebe Cottage. 
 
With superb photography throughout, she takes us on a procession through the seasons, as she plans and plants, sows seeds and nurtures cuttings, tends the borders, and harvests her crops. 
 
Her energy, knowledge and passion will be an inspiration to gardeners old and new alike in every month of the year.

Life in a Cottage Garden

a delightful, personal account of a year spent delighting in and cherishing a beautiful garden from the BBC’s Carol Klein

Christopher Stocks

In Forgotten Fruits, Christopher Stocks tells the fascinating - often rather bizarre - stories behind Britain's rich heritage of fruit and vegetables. Take Newton Wonder apples, for instance, first discovered around 1870 allegedly growing in the thatch of a Derbyshire pub. Or the humble gooseberry which, among other things, helped Charles Darwin to arrive at his theory of evolution. Not to mention the ubiquitous tomato, introduced to Britain from South America in the sixteenth century but regarded as highly poisonous for hearly 200 years. 
 
This is a wonderful piece of social and natural history that will appeal to every gardener and food aficionado.

Forgotten Fruits

The stories behind Britain's traditional fruit and vegetables

Ramona Jones

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 
 
Escape into Ramona's garden, find peace within these pages. 
 
A love letter, and gentle guide, to the power of nurturing – flora, fauna and yourself – in whatever outdoor space you have, be it a plot, patch or pot. 
 
Each season brings self-care lessons, glimmers of joy and growing opportunities. Spring is a time of reawakening, summer is a time of generosity, autumn brings transformation and winter invites us to slow down. 
 
With simple projects and garden jobs organised by month, this is a practical guide for new and established gardeners alike, framed by Ramona's diary-style reflections. 
 
- 
 
“Over the years, I’ve found solace in gardening, which has allowed me to discover who I truly am. If my mental health feels turbulent, the seasonal rhythm in the garden is a predictable and reassuring constant. Through this book I hope to help you nurture your personal journey through the act of gardening. If you have never gardened before and are feeling intimidated at the thought of getting started, this book will give you permission to begin.” Ramona Jones

Growing

A year of living and nurturing with the seasons

Derek Jarman

'I planted a dog rose. Then I found a curious piece of driftwood and used this, and one of the necklaces of holey stones on the wall, to stake the rose. The garden had begun. I saw it as a therapy and a pharmacopoeia.' 
 
 In 1986 artist and filmmaker, Derek Jarman, bought Prospect Cottage, a Victorian fisherman's hut on the desert sands of Dungeness. It was to be a home and refuge for Jarman throughout his HIV diagnosis, and it would provide the stage for one of his most enduring, if transitory projects - his garden. Conceived of as a 'pharmacopoeia' - an ever-evolving circle of stones, plants and flotsam sculptures all built and grown in spite of the bracing winds and arid shingle - it remains today a site of fascination and wonder. 
 
Pharmacopoeia brings together the best of Derek Jarman's writing on nature, gardening and Prospect Cottage. Told through journal entries, poems and fragments of prose, it paints a portrait of Jarman's personal and artistic reliance on the space Dungeness offered him, and shows the cycle of the years spent there in one moving collage. 
 
'[Derek] made of this wee house, his wooden tent pitched in the wilderness, an artwork - and out of its shingle skirts, an ingenious garden - now internationally recognised. But, first and foremost, the cottage was always a living thing, a practical toolbox for his work' Tilda Swinton, from her Foreword

Pharmacopoeia

A Dungeness Notebook

Tom Hart Dyke

Tom Hart Dyke has a bit of a thing about plants. You might call it an obsession. You might call him certifiable, in fact. But it's a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large ramshackle country estate and an obsession with plant collecting could want for only one thing - in Tom's case it's a walled garden containing examples of plants collected from every corner of the globe. 
 
Tom's infectious enthusiasm for anything with chlorophyll in it and the hugely ambitious World Garden project he has undertaken at his family home, Lullingstone Castle, in Kent have been documented in a 12-part television series for BBC 2. The first six parts (Save Lullingstone Castle) were shown in spring 2006, and the second six episodes (Return to Lullingstone Castle) in spring 2007. 
 
Tom's attempts to set up the World Garden aren't exactly straightforward. You might imagine, for example, that the easiest way to start preparing the ground inside the walled Elizabethan garden which he transforms into the main part of the world garden would be to enlist the help of a few people and a lot of hard digging. Well not for Tom, who enlists instead two large pigs, who do indeed do a great job of turning over the earth and fertilising it with great organic manure. But the problem is that they keep escaping into the Hart Dyke family burial plot next door where they start digging up Tom's ancestors... 
 
The World Garden is created to bring together a truly amazing collection of plants from every continent and so to show the global origins of the plants we all grow in our gardens. It's already establishing itself as a tourist attraction of some note as well as an educational resource. 
 
This is a book for all those who bought Tim Smit's Lost Gardens of Heligan. It's stuffed full of fascinating botanical information as well as the story of Tom's hapless struggle to overcome huge logistical nightmares. It's a riveting, hilarious story of English eccentricity in full bloom.

An Englishman's Home

The Adventures of an Eccentric Gardener

Alex Dingwall-Main

What happens when you relocate to the perfect house, in the perfect village in Provence, and nearly ten years later the shine has gone? Garden designer Alex Dingwall-Main is facing lavender fatigue, strife at home, neighbourly warfare and non-paying business clients. He is on the verge of packing his bags and starting all over again, back in England. 
 
Until one Spring day he is offered an opportunity by a wealthy and very grateful client; a treasure hunt for 12 bottles of exquisite French wine. It would be a journey through the country's finest vineyards, chateaux and villages. With a hangover and an uncertain heart, Alex decides to give it one more try and sets off in search of the France he fell in love with so many years ago. The people, the gardens and the wine that he encounters make for an adventurous and beautiful summer, and life-changing decisions are reached...

The Vine Garden

A search for home in the gardens and vineyards of France

Tim Richardson

Between 1715 and 1750, a group of politicans and poets, farmers and businessmen, heiresses and landowners began to experiment with the phenomenon that was to become the English landscape garden. Arguably the greatest British art form ever invented, these gardens were built to charm and delight, to shock and inspire all who visited. That these gardens - including Castle Howard, Stowe, Painshill and Rousham - are still so popular with visitors today is a testament to the innovation and passion of this extraordinary group of eccentrics and visionaries. 
 
The Arcadian Friends takes a highly engaging perspective on the politics and culture of England during the Enlightenment. At the same time it will be required reading for the legions of fans of the great gardens of England. 
 
Tim Richardson introduces us to a period of poltical and personal intrigue, where fantastic biblical landscapes competed for space with temples to sexual freedom; and where the installation of a water feature was a political act. The Arcadian Friends tells the story of a collection of fascinating characters whose influence changed the landscape of Britain for ever.

The Arcadian Friends

Ben Williams

Find yourself, in your shed. 
 
Turn your she-shed or man cave into your own private escape with 101 simple, practical ideas. 
 
Take some well-deserved alone time and learn to preserve lemons and chillies, whittle a butter knife, tie your own fishing flies, keep chickens, plant a roof garden or make a camera obscura. 
 
Why not transform your shed itself? This book is full of inspiration for anyone who has dreamed of having an observatory, a sauna, a pub – or just a bit of peace and quiet at the bottom of the garden. 
 
The perfect gift for anyone who would rather be in their shed.

Shedonism

101 Excuses to Escape to Your Shed

Ursula Buchan

SHORTLISTED FOR INSPIRATIONAL BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE 2014 GARDEN MEDIA GUILD AWARDS. 
 
The wonderfully evocative story of how Britain’s World War Two gardeners – with great ingenuity, invincible good humour and extraordinary fortitude – dug for victory on home turf. 
 
A Green and Pleasant Land tells the intriguing and inspiring story of how Britain's wartime government encouraged and cajoled its citizens to grow their own fruit and vegetables. As the Second World War began in earnest and a whole nation listened to wireless broadcasts, dug holes for Anderson shelters, counted their coupons and made do and mended, so too were they instructed to ‘Dig for Victory’. 
 
Ordinary people, as well as gardening experts, rose to the challenge: gardens, scrubland, allotments and even public parks were soon helping to feed a nation deprived of fresh produce. As Ursula Buchan reveals, this practical contribution to the Home Front was tackled with thrifty ingenuity, grumbling humour and extraordinary fortitude. The simple act of turning over soil and tending new plants became important psychologically for a population under constant threat of bombing and even invasion. Gardening reminded people that their country and its more innocent and insular pursuits were worth fighting for. Gardening in wartime Britain was a part of the fight for freedom.

A Green and Pleasant Land

How England’s Gardeners Fought the Second World War

Jojo Tulloh

Those of us living in towns and cities might think that the pleasures of growing our own food, watching the seasons pass with the changing produce and getting our hands stuck into the soil are beyond our reach. But a growing number of urban dwellers are realising that there are ways of connecting with the land, and enjoying the sheer pleasure of watching something grow, without giving up the joys of living in the city. 
 
Jojo Tulloh takes us to her inner-city allotment and guides us through a year of cooking, inspired by the food that has sprung from her surprisingly fertile patch of East London waste-ground.

East End Paradise

Kitchen Garden Cooking in the City

As readers of The Luberon Garden will know, Alex Dingwall-Main has come across some very odd garden desires in his time. But none so odd as the Frenchman who asked Alex to find him the oldest olive tree in existence and fetch it to the South of France to take pride of place in his exquisite garden. 
 
This charming, witty and evocative piece of horticultural travel writing takes us from the olive groves of Provence, to the hillsides of Greece, from farms in Spain, to a back yard in Italy. Along the way our intrepid garden designer meets a tree that is 3,000 years old; a farmer who won't sell his tree unless he can sell the 2,000 acre farm that surrounds it; an olive tree that saved a marriage and a village that believes a drop of rain touched by the leaves of the ancient 'Angel Olive' will cure anything. 
 
A wonderfully lyrical book with an extraordinary mission.

The Angel Tree

Jane Brown

Lancelot Brown changed the face of eighteenth-century England, designing country estates and mansions, moving hills and making flowing lakes and serpentine rivers, a magical world of green. This English landscape style spread across Europe and the world. At home, it proved so pleasing that Brown's influence spread into the lowland landscape at large, and into landscape painting. He stands behind our vision, and fantasy, of rural England. 
 
In this vivid, lively biography, based on detailed research, Jane Brown paints an unforgettable picture of the man, his work, his happy domestic life, and his crowded world. She follows the life of the jovial yet elusive Mr Brown, from his childhood and apprenticeship in rural Northumberland, through his formative years at Stowe, the most famous garden of the day. 
 
His innovative ideas, and his affable and generous nature, led to a meteoric rise to a Royal Appointment in 1764 and his clients and friends ranged from statesmen like the elder Pitt to artists and actors like David Garrick. Riding constantly across England, Brown never ceased working until he collapsed and died in February 1783 after visiting one of his oldest clients. He was a practical man but also a visionary, always willing to try something new. As this beautifully illustrated biography shows, Brown filled England with enchantment - follies, cascades, lakes, bridges, ornaments, monuments, meadows and woods - creating views that still delight us today.

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, 1716-1783

The Omnipotent Magician

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The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

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16 books for 9 to 12-year-olds that love adventures

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