Books for Gardeners

'A garden contains secrets, we all know buried elements that might put on strange growth or germinate in unexpected places. The garden that I chose had walls, but like every garden it was interconnected, wide open to the world . . .'In 2020, Olivia Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual plants. The work drew her into an exhilarating investigation of paradise and its long association with gardens. Moving between real and imagined gardens, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to John Clare’s enclosure elegies, from a wartime sanctuary in Italy to a grotesque aristocratic pleasure ground funded by slavery, Laing interrogates the sometimes shocking cost of making paradise on earth.But the story of the garden doesn’t always enact larger patterns of privilege and exclusion. It’s also a place of rebel outposts and communal dreams. From the improbable queer utopia conjured by Derek Jarman on the beach at Dungeness to the fertile vision of a common Eden propagated by William Morris, new modes of living can and have been attempted amidst the flower beds, experiments that could prove vital in the coming era of climate change.The result is a beautiful and exacting account of the abundant pleasures and possibilities of the garden, not as a place to hide from the world but as a site of encounter and discovery, bee-loud and pollen-laden.Endorsements'What a wonderful book this is. I loved the enchanting and beautifully written story but also the fascinating and thoughtful excursions along the way.' — Nigel Slater

'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 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.Endorsements'[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

From 1946 to 1957, Vita Sackville-West, the poet, bestselling author of All Passion Spent and creator of Sissinghurst, wrote a weekly column in the Observer describing her life at Sissinghurst, showing her to be one of the most visionary horticulturalists of the twentieth century.With wonderful additions by Sarah Raven, Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst draws on this extraordinary archive, revealing Vita's most loved flowers, as well as offering practical advice for gardeners. Often funny and completely accessible, it is written with colour and originality and describes the trials and tribulations of crafting a place of beauty and elegance.Sissinghurst has gone on to become one of the most visited and inspirational gardens in the world, and this marvellous book, illustrated with drawings and original photographs throughout, shows how it was created and how gardeners everywhere can use some of the ideas from both Sarah Raven and Vita Sackville-West.

In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure, and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry’s brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father’s money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma’s research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction—into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist—but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who—born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution—bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert’s wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge.EndorsementsFrom the New York Times bestselling author

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.Years later, a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited — her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.A rich, magical book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.

Lilian Girvan has been a single mother for three years — ever since her husband died in a car accident. One mental breakdown and some random suicidal thoughts later, she's just starting to get the hang of this widow thing. She can now get her two girls to school, show up to work, and watch TV like a pro. The only problem is she's becoming overwhelmed with being underwhelmed.At least her textbook-illustrating job has some perks — like actually being called upon to draw whale genitalia. Oh, and there's that vegetable-gardening class her boss signed her up for. Apparently being the chosen illustrator for a series of boutique vegetable guides means getting your hands dirty, literally. Wallowing around in compost on a Saturday morning can't be much worse than wallowing around in pajamas and self-pity.After recruiting her kids and her insanely supportive sister to join her, Lilian shows up at the Los Angeles Botanical Garden feeling out of her element. But what she'll soon discover — with the help of a patient instructor and a quirky group of gardeners — is that into every life a little sun must shine, whether you want it to or not.A compelling debut novel about loss. Give grief a chance.

A 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soul-mate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

Yumi Fuller hasn't set foot in her parents' farm in Idaho since she ran away when she was fifteen. Now, twenty-five years later, the prodigal daughter — and now a struggling single mother of three — is returning home, desperate to win back the love of her ailing father and to confront her best friend and her conflicted past. Still spirited and rebellious, she finds a world — and her parents — changed beyond recognition. In the weeks and months to come, Yumi breathes life back into her parents' farm. And with the arrival of a group of young anti-GM activists, the Seeds of Resistance, she finds herself caught up in a new revolution. All Over Creation is a moving exploration of the dichotomies of love and responsibility and a celebratory tale of the capacity for renewal that resides within us all.

A foundling, an old book of dark fairy tales, a secret garden, an aristocratic family, a love denied, and a mystery.Cassandra is lost, alone and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything dear to her. But an unexpected and mysterious bequest from Nell turns Cassandra’s life upside down and ends up challenging everything she thought she knew about herself and her family.Inheriting a book of dark and intriguing fairytales written by Eliza Makepeace—the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century—Cassandra takes her courage in both hands to follow in the footsteps of Nell on a quest to find out the truth about their history, their family and their past; little knowing that in the process, she will also discover a new life for herself.The Forgotten Garden is a captivating, atmospheric and compulsively readable story of the past, secrets, family and memory.

At the nursery she runs with her sisters on the New England coast, Sorrel Sparrow has honed her rare gift for nurturing plants and flowers. Now that reputation, and a stroke of good timing, lands Sorrel an unexpected opportunity: reviving a long-dormant Shakespearean garden on an English country estate.Arriving at Kirkwood Hall, ancestral home of Sir Graham Kirkwood and his wife Stella, Sorrel is shocked by the desolate state of the walled garden. Generations have tried—and failed—to bring it back to glory. Sorrel senses heartbreak and betrayal here, perhaps even enchantment. Intrigued by the house’s history—especially the haunting tapestries that grace its walls—and increasingly drawn to Stella’s enigmatic brother, Sorrel sets to work. And though she knows her true home is across the sea with her sisters, instinct tells her that the English garden’s destiny is entwined with her own, if she can only unravel its secrets…Every garden is a story, waiting to be told…

It's 1916 and England is at war. Desperate to help in whatever way they can, Ivy and Louisa enlist as gardeners at Kew, taking on the jobs of the men who have gone to fight. Under their care, the gardens begin to flourish — but Ivy and Louisa aren't being treated fairly, and not everyone wants them there. Without women's rights, the pair begin to struggle — but can the support of the Suffragettes help their cause? And when a tragedy overseas affects the people closest to them, can the women of Kew pull together to support themselves and their country through the darkest of times?

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. The mansion has nearly one hundred rooms, and her uncle keeps himself locked up. At night she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors.The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary's only escape.Then Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. One day, with the help of two unexpected companions, she discovers a way in. Is everything in the garden dead, or can Mary bring it back to life?

In The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling and creating an ecosystem that mitigates the impact of extremes of heat and cold for the whole group. As a result of such interactions, trees in a family or community are protected and can live to be very old. In contrast, solitary trees, like street kids, have a tough time of it and in most cases die much earlier than those in a group.Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the secret and previously unknown life of trees and their communication abilities; he describes how these discoveries have informed his own practices in the forest around him. As he says, a happy forest is a healthy forest, and he believes that eco-friendly practices not only are economically sustainable but also benefit the health of our planet and the mental and physical health of all who live on Earth.

In Wilding, Isabella Tree tells the story of the 'Knepp experiment', a pioneering rewilding project in West Sussex, using free-roaming grazing animals to create new habitats for wildlife.Forced to accept that intensive farming on the heavy clay of their land at Knepp was economically unsustainable, Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell made a spectacular leap of faith: they decided to step back and let nature take over. Thanks to the introduction of free-roaming cattle, ponies, pigs and deer — proxies of the large animals that once roamed Britain — the 3,500-acre project has seen extraordinary increases in wildlife numbers and diversity in little over a decade.Extremely rare species, including turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons, lesser spotted woodpeckers and purple emperor butterflies, are now breeding at Knepp, and populations of other species are rocketing. The Burrells' degraded agricultural land has become a functioning ecosystem again, heaving with life — all by itself.Part gripping memoir, part fascinating account of the ecology of our countryside, Wilding is, above all, an inspiring story of hope. Personal and inspirational, Wilding is an astonishing account of the beauty and strength of nature, when it is given as much freedom as possible.EndorsementsWinner of the Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Book Shop Literary Prize.Highly Commended by the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize.'A passionately personal, robustly argued and uplifting book . . . One of the landmark ecological books of the decade.' — Sunday Times 'Books of the Year'

A distinguished psychiatrist and avid gardener offers an inspiring and consoling work about the healing effects of gardening and its ability to decrease stress and foster mental well-being in our everyday lives.The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the “real” life that lies outside. But when we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Gardening is one of the quintessential nurturing activities and yet we understand so little about it. The Well-Gardened Mind provides a new perspective on the power of gardening to change people’s lives. Here, Sue Stuart-Smith investigates the many ways in which mind and garden can interact and explores how the process of tending a plot can be a way of sustaining an innermost self.Stuart-Smith’s own love of gardening developed as she studied to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. From her grandfather’s return from World War I to Freud’s obsession with flowers to case histories with her own patients to progressive gardening programs in such places as Rikers Island prison in New York City, Stuart-Smith weaves thoughtful yet powerful examples to argue that gardening is much more important to our cognition than we think. Recent research is showing how green nature has direct antidepressant effects on humans.Essential and pragmatic, The Well-Gardened Mind is a book for gardeners and the perfect read for people seeking healthier mental lives.

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science.As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces indigenous teachings that consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together. Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, she shows how other living beings offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices.Endorsements"A mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose." — Publishers Weekly"Anyone interested in natural history, botany, protecting nature, or Native American culture will love it." — Library Journal"Takes us on a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise." — Elizabeth Gilbert

The Garden Jungle is a wonderful introduction to the hundreds of small creatures with whom we live cheek-by-jowl and of the myriad ways that we can encourage them to thrive.The Garden Jungle is about the wildlife that lives right under our noses, in our gardens and parks, between the gaps in the pavement, and in the soil beneath our feet. Wherever you are right now, the chances are that there are worms, woodlice, centipedes, flies, silverfish, wasps, beetles, mice, shrews and much, much more, quietly living within just a few paces of you.Dave Goulson gives us an insight into the fascinating and sometimes weird lives of these creatures, taking us burrowing into the compost heap, digging under the lawn and diving into the garden pond. He explains how our lives and ultimately the fate of humankind are inextricably intertwined with that of earwigs, bees, lacewings and hoverflies, unappreciated heroes of the natural world.The Garden Jungle is at times an immensely serious book, exploring the environmental harm inadvertently done by gardeners who buy intensively reared plants in disposable plastic pots, sprayed with pesticides and grown in peat cut from the ground. Goulson argues that gardens could become places where we can reconnect with nature and rediscover where food comes from. With just a few small changes, our gardens could become a vast network of tiny nature reserves, where humans and wildlife can thrive together in harmony rather than conflict.For anyone who has a garden, and cares about our planet, this book is essential reading.EndorsementsSunday Times bestseller

Teoh Yun Ling was seventeen years old when she first heard about Aritomo and the garden. But a war would come to Malaya, and a decade pass before she would travel to see him. A man of extraordinary skill and reputation, Aritomo was once the gardener for the Emperor of Japan, and now Yun Ling needs him. She needs him to help her build a memorial to her beloved sister, killed at the hands of the Japanese. She wants to learn everything Aritomo can teach her, and do her sister proud, but to do so she must also begin a journey into her own past, a past inextricably linked with the secrets of her troubled country.A story of art, war, love and memory, The Garden of Evening Mists captures a dark moment in history with richness, power and incredible beauty.EndorsementsA BBC Two Between the Covers book club pick.Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.Winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize.Winner of the Walter Scott Prize.

A Wilder Way is a memoir of a relationship with an ever-changing garden, of setting down roots and becoming embedded in nature, and of how tending to a patch of land will not only grow us as individuals, but can also help to grow a better world.Join Poppy Okotcha in her wild little garden in Devon, where, over the course of a year, she shares the inspiring, the mundane and the magical moments that arise from tending a garden through the seasons, and what they can teach us about living more sustainably.Alongside tips for sowing and growing, wild ingredients to be found and delicious seasonal recipes to make, she shows us how the small joys of engaging with the natural world are imperative for our physical and emotional wellbeing. How the more we look at the world around us, the more we learn and the more we care. Woven throughout are personal stories, exploration of environmental issues facing us today, and folktales from her English and Nigerian heritage – stories with nature at their heart that have inspired her, and will inspire us to live a little more wildly.With original illustrations from Frances WhitfieldEndorsements"A wise, passionate, heartfelt book. An invaluable resource for those seeking greater attunement with the year's cycles." — Katherine May"I learnt so much, about the alchemy of the living world and the possibilities of relationship. I finished the book newly awestruck by planet Earth and all the life that she carries. Beautifully written, nourishing, evocative and inspiring." — Lucy Jones, author of Losing Eden"Poppy's fresh-eyed look at her own little corner of the county gave me a renewed sense of wonder and delight at the joys and challenges of loving and (on good days) living off a small patch of land. Plus some truly brilliant ideas for getting the most from it." — Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall"This is an intimate look at building a true relationship with a garden and all that live in it. Practical, poetic, political — like the best conversations over tea in the garden." — Alys Fowler

Camille T. Dungy diversifies her garden to reflect her heritage as she expands how we talk about the natural world and the environment.In The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy recounts the seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominantly white community of Fort Collins, Colorado. When she moved there in 2013 with her husband and daughter, the community held strict restrictions about what residents could and could not plant in their gardens.In resistance to the homogenous policies that limited the possibility and wonder that grows from the earth, Dungy employs the various plants, herbs, vegetables, and flowers she grows in her garden as metaphor and treatise for how homogeneity threatens the future of our planet, and why cultivating diverse and intersectional language in our national discourse about the environment is the best means of protecting it.Soil functions as the nexus of nature writing, environmental justice, and prose to encourage you to recognize the relationship between the people of the African diaspora and the land on which they live, and to understand that wherever soil rests beneath their feet is home.Endorsements“A heartfelt and thoroughly enriching” — Aimee Nezhukumatathil, New York Times bestselling author of World of Wonders.“Brilliant and beautiful” — Ross Gay, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights.Camille T. Dungy is a National Book Critics Circle finalist.

War Gardens is a surprising, tragic and beautiful journey through the darkest places of the modern world, revealing the ways people make time and space for themselves and for nature even in the middle of destruction.In this millennium, we have become war weary. From Afghanistan to Iraq, from Ukraine to South Sudan and Syria, from Kashmir to the West Bank, conflict is as contagious and poisonous as Japanese knotweed. Living through it are people just like us with ordinary jobs, ordinary pressures and ordinary lives. Against a new landscape of horror and violence it is up to them to maintain a modicum of normality and colour. For some, gardening is the way to achieve this.Working in the world's most dangerous war zones, freelance war correspondent and photographer Lally Snow has often chanced across a very moving sight, a testimony to the triumph of the human spirit in adversity: a celebration of hope and a war garden. In Kabul, the royal gardens are tended by a centenarian gardener, though the king is long gone; in Camp Bastion, bored soldiers improvise tiny gardens to give themselves a moment's peace; on both sides of the dividing line in Jerusalem, families tend groves of olives and raise beautiful plants from the unforgiving, disputed landscape; in Ukraine, families tend their gardens in the middle of a surreal, frozen war.Illustrated with Lally Snow's own award-winning photography, this is a book to treasure.A journey through the most unlikely of the oases of peace people create in the midst of warEndorsements'A remarkable book... It's a powerful testament to the healing balm of gardening and the resilience of the human spirit in the direst of circumstances.' — Financial Times'Not a happy book and yet it's magically heartening. It makes a gardener question his or her values.' — The Times'This extraordinary book... warm and engaging... like a photograph magicked to life.' — Spectator'Snow has spent ten years as a photographer and filmmaker covering unrest... Throughout that time she has sought comfort in green oases and come to understand "how vital gardens are 'against a horrid wilderness' of war".... There can be few counter-narratives as enchanting and sad as those Snow recounts in War Gardens.' — Times Literary Supplement'For all these victims of war, their gardens are places in which to breathe, providing moments of calm, hope and optimism in a fragile life of horror and uncertainty. For many, it helps them to grieve. Books seldom bring a lump to my throat, but this one did.' — Spectator'What makes War Gardens the most illuminating garden book to be published this year is the realisation that people's gardens are the antidotes to the horrors of their surroundings.' — Country Life

#1 New York Times bestselling author and “queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory brings to life the passionate, turbulent times of seventeenth-century England as seen through the eyes of the country’s most famous royal gardener.John Tradescant’s fame and skill as a gardener are unsurpassed in seventeenth-century England, but it is his clear-sighted honesty and loyalty that make him an invaluable servant. As an informal confidant of Sir Robert Cecil, adviser to King James I, he witnesses the making of history, from the Gunpowder Plot to the accession of King Charles I and the growing animosity between Parliament and court. Tradescant’s talents soon come to the attention of the most powerful man in the country, the irresistible Duke of Buckingham, the lover of King Charles I. Tradescant has always been faithful to his masters, but Buckingham is unlike any he has ever flamboyant, outrageously charming, and utterly reckless. Every certainty upon which Tradescant has based his life—his love of his wife and children, his passion for his work, his loyalty to his country—is shattered as he follows Buckingham to court, to war, and to the forbidden territories of human love.