As the leaves begin to turn and fall, as the nights get crisper and the air takes on a uniquely autumnal fragrance, I am thrilled to be leaving the long, hot days of summer behind. Summer has its charms but it remains my least favourite season. That said, I shall miss the bright variety of my summer garden even as I take pleasure this autumn in planning and planting for a colourful spring.
But even as I’m plotting what bulbs to use, what plants to move, I’m thinking even further ahead, into the dark, rainy months of winter when books are more suitable companions than trowel and pruning shears. To that end, I’ve composed a gardening-themed book list in three parts, to be presented over the next few weeks while I’m on vacation. There’s no real logic to how these books were selected. Some are histories of plants or people, others personal chronicles of gardening adventures. I have read none of them and cannot offer any personal guarantee of quality but was intrigued enough to have put them on my TBR list. Please feel free to suggest your own favourites and once I’m back I’ll do a fourth post devoted to them!
The Curious Gardener: A Year in the Garden by Anna Pavord
From what to do in each month and how to get the best from flowers, plants, herbs, fruit and vegetables, through reflections on the weather, soil, the English landscape and favourite old gardening clothes, to office greenery, spring in New York, waterfalls, Derek Jarman and garden design, Anna Pavord always has something interesting to say and says it with great style and candour.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Gardens by Vita Sackville-West
In this unique gardening chronicle Vita Sackville-West weaves together simple, honest accounts of her horticultural experiences throughout the year with exquisite writing and poetic description. Whether singing the praises of sweet-briar, cyclamen, Indian pinks and the Strawberry grape, or giving practical advice on pruning roses, planting bulbs, overcoming frosts and making the most of a small space, her writings on the art of good gardening are both instructive and delightful.
The Oxford Companion to the Garden edited by Patrick Taylor
This Companion is devoted to gardens of every kind and the people and ideas involved in their making. It combines a survey of the world’s gardens with articles on a range of topics, such as garden visiting, horticulture, scientific issues, and the social history of gardens, as well as biographies of garden designers, nurserymen, and others. Over half the entries are devoted to individual gardens, ranging from palace gardens such as Versailles to private gardens of outstanding design or plant interest, botanic gardens and arboreta, and late 20th-century land art. The geographical coverage is worldwide, with contributions from leading authorities and top garden writers from more than 25 countries.
Flower Hunters by Mary Gribbin and John Gribbin
From the Douglas-fir and the monkey puzzle tree, to exotic orchids and azaleas, many of the plants that are now so familiar to us were found in distant regions of the globe, often in wild and unexplored country, in impenetrable jungle, and in the face of hunger, disease, and hostile locals. It was specimens like these, smuggled home by the flower hunters, that helped build the great botanical collections, and lay the foundations for the revolution in our understanding of the natural world that was to follow. Here, the adventures of eleven such explorers are brought to life, describing not only their extraordinary daring and dedication, but also the lasting impact of their discoveries both on science, and on the landscapes and gardens that we see today.
Strange Blooms: The Curious Lives and Adventures of the John Tradescants by Jennifer Potter
This elegantly written and gorgeously produced book is a portrait of the father and son who created an earthly Eden in the seventeenth century.
The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of Plants by Anna Pavord
…traces the search for order in the natural world, a search that for hundreds of years occupied some of the most brilliant minds in Europe.
And a few garden-related books I have already read and reviewed:
The Gardener’s Year – Karel Čapek
Paths of Desire – Dominique Browning
Elizabeth and Her German Garden – Elizabeth von Arnim
Merry Hall – Beverley Nichols
If you love gardening books and haven’t read it already, I do warmly recommend The Morville Hours by Katherine Swift. It is such a beautiful, soothing, evocative read. I suspect it of magical powers, like being able to heal the sick and assuage the lonely! Really, it’s just gorgeous.
Ohhh, I love book lists! And theoretical gardening (I’ve yet to try to actually make one, I’m too afraid I’ll put in all that energy & time and then nothing will grow, lol), so I’m bookmarking this!
I bought Flower Hunters … but gave it to someone as a present! Maybe that should go back onto my Wish List!
Might I add to more to the list: The Laskett by Sir Roy Strong, about the creation, with his late wife, of their garden in Herefordshire.
And: The 3,000 Mile Garden by Roger Phillips and Leslie Land (who is female inspite of the masculine spelling of her name Leslie) which is “an exchange of letters between two eccentric gourmet gardeners” one living in London, and who gardens 3 acres of Eccleston Square, a former ‘urban desert’ and a cook who lives in a part of the USA which has frozen ground for part of the year but very hot summers.
A perfect painting to lead into this list of gardening books. You have certainly given me some books to look into.
I often return to The Invisible Garden by Dorothy Sucher and do recommend it.
The garden club I belong to does a read each year, in January. We will be reading Two Gardens, which are letters on gardening between two women. One of the authors is Katherine White, an editor and writer in her own right and wife of E.B. White.
Anything by Gladys Taber.
Thank you for this lovely list, Claire. You’ve got me hooked on the idea of reading some of these in mid-winter, particularly Flower Hunters and Strange Blooms.
Hi, I just found my way over here because Chelsea mentioned you for BBAW and what do I find- gardening books reccomendations! I love gardening, and reading about gardening, so already I’m scribbling down a new list of books thanks to your blog. I’ll be coming by again!
Yes, Two Gardens is a lovely book. Might I also recommend a work of fiction which is about a garden and which I think is a lovely story: Helene Wiggin’s In the Heart of the Garden.