Put down the trowel and pull up a chair. Now that the garden's at rest, here are some fine new books to study instead, writes Jane Powers
Thank heavens for winter, for it offers us some respite from the clamour of the garden, and allows us to put our feet up in front of the fire and get stuck into a good book - about gardening, of course. This year has produced a fine crop, and I've enjoyed winnowing out a few of the more luscious, useful and entertaining ones.
Few of us have grand gardens, which makes it all the more enjoyable to dive into a book such as Heritage Gardens: The World's Great Gardens Saved by Restorationby garden historian George Plumptre (Mitchell Beazley, £30). Those who wish to binge on a bit of horticultural eye candy and palatable erudition need only to flick through the pages, and through the ages: from the early 17th-century cloister garden at in Wales to the modernist 1940s garden at the Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs, California.
Other historic gardens are celebrated in a number of books from publisher Frances Lincoln. The Garden at Bomarzo: a Renaissance Riddleby Jessie Sheeler (£25) is dedicated to one of the most atmospheric gardens in Italy, with its grotesque and often scary sculptures, dating from the 16th century. The Magic of Monet's Garden by Derek Fell(£25) concentrates on the master painter's romantic and achingly pretty planting schemes at Giverny, while The Garden at Hidcoteby Fred Whitsey (£20) details and chronicles that most British of gardens in the Cotswolds - which was, in fact, created by an American.
Cuttings: A Year in the Gardenwith Christopher Lloyd (Chatto & Windus, £18.99) is selections from columns in the Guardianby the late writer and gardener. His delightfully snobby voice warbles off the page: "It is essential to have spiky plants in any British garden, where most of the vegetation is soft-looking. They give an immediate lift (much like the first glass of champagne on a Sunday morning)." Like him or not, he was a wise and brilliant gardener, and could describe the most dull task with brio.
Houseplants are as much a definer of an era as fashion or architecture. The aspidistra held sway in the dark parlours of the Victorians, while philodendrons and jade plants were some of our grandmothers' favourite plants between the 1950s and 1970s. Now, the moth orchid (there's one flowering on the windowsill as I write this), is one of the most common indoor plants. The history and development of plants such as these is the subject of Potted History: The Story of Plants in the Homeby Catherine Horwood (Frances Lincoln, £25).
The Royal Horticultural Society Treasury of Trees, selected by Charles Elliott (Frances Lincoln, £13.99) is a compendium of arboreally-inspired poetry and prose chosen by one of the most entertaining garden writers around. Henry David Thoreau, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Seamus Heaney and WB Yeats are all here, as are various horticultural types. There are gems such as the 1826 entry from the diary of planthunter David Douglas, on cone-harvesting from the lofty tree that would later bear his name, the Douglas fir: "I took my gun and was busy clipping them from the branches with ball when eight Indians came at the report of my gun . . . painted with red earth, armed with bows, arrows, spears of bone, and flint knives, and seemed anything but friendly . . ." Illustrations from botanical prints complete this little volume.
The Faber Book of Gardensedited by Philip Robinson (Faber & Faber, £20), has nary a picture between its covers, but never mind. The whole gamut of gardening is here, from the Garden of Eden, as described in the book of Genesis, to Lucy Siegle writing in the Observerin 2005 about "guerrilla gardening" - enterprising people commandeering railway sidings and other disused bits of land for food crops.
For students of garden design, two books: purely for cogging ideas from (or for discovering your likes and dislikes): The first, 1,000 Garden Ideasby Stafford Cliff (Quadrille, £20) is almost all pictures (with no captions, alas). As an avid reader, I surprise myself by recommending a book with just a smidgeon of text. But, if you want snapshots of 173 kinds of garden seating, 58 gates, over a dozen pages of fences and walls, and more paths, edges, pools, pergolas and other garden features than you'd care to count, this is a valuable resource. In a similar vein, but with much more text, is Outdoorsby Diarmuid Gavin and Terence Conran (Conran Octopus, £40). A great hefty tome, it has chapter headings such as "Inspiration", "Rural", "Urban", "Entertaining" "Natural", "Family" and so on. It's more style guide than practical book, and is aimed, I think, at aspiring designers, rather than gardeners.
Gardeners of the rolled-up-sleeves and down-to-earth variety will be well-served by the Royal Horticultural Society's New Gardeningby Matthew Wilson (Mitchell Beazley, £18.99). This book, by the curator of the RHS gardens at Hyde Hall and Harlow Carr, looks at gardening today, with challenges such as changing climate, the need for sustainability, and choosing appropriate planting for various conditions. Wilson's advice is solid, comprehensive and right up to date, and his planting prescriptions are both naturalistic and stylish.
Style - unless it's the post-modern kind afforded by recycled car tyres and dead fridges - is not something of which one could accuse Bob Flowerdew, author of Going Organic(Kyle Cathie, £19.99). But his green credentials are impeccable. His new book offers much tried and tested advice on maintaining an organic garden, and also offers solutions to many of the multifarious problems that such a gardener might face: pests, diseases and plant stresses.
Jekka McVicar, another writer flying the organic flag, has created a revised edition of her 1994 herb guide. Jekka's Complete Herb Book(Kyle Cathie, £25), which carries a plug from Jamie Oliver - "her biggest fan" - on the jacket, covers the history, cultivation and various uses of 150 herbs. She helpfully includes numerous fascinating recipes (dandelion and bacon salad, anyone?). McVicar has run her own herb nursery in Gloucestershire for more than 20 years, so she has valuable experience to share.
And speaking of valuable experience, I want to commend to you, once again, Helen Dillon's Garden Book(Frances Lincoln, £25). Not only is she one of the world's most accomplished gardeners, but she's "ours", having lived and gardened in Dublin for nearly 40 years. Her book is the most entertaining gardening book you're likely to pick up this year, and it delivers sound practical knowledge as well. You can't ask for much more than that. u