Bonsai is the Japanese art of caring for trees and these miniature trees represent the next level of plant parenthood. When given the right care they can be rewarding to grow and here is a marvellous directory of over 50 popular varieties with beautiful photography capturing the unique character of every plant. Organised by outdoor and indoor, there is a Japanese white pine, Abbott's pygmy Canadian hemlock, a dwarf birch, or Alberta spruce, Little John Hinoki Cyprus, a bearberry cotoneaster with small white blooms in spring followed by berries in late summer that turn dark red in winter and colourful leaves in the autumn, it can be trained for cascading styles. Even the European olive, the willow leaf fig and the Bougainvillea with its pink tissue-papery bracts in hues of pink and scarlet we are familiar with on the sunny walls of Mediterranean homes can be bonsaied, and pruned heavily. Place in full sun, regulate soil moisture, keep between 7°C and 38°C in a well ventilated area and use a soil mix of 70% organic matter sifting out any fine particles and 30% grit and watch for aphids or white fly. With expert advice on general care, tips on pruning and styling. 144pp in a beautifully designed publication complete with glossary and list of suppliers and laid out almost like a recipe book. 100 colour illus.

The lily has cultural connotations of romance, remembrance, love and innocence and can be found in literature, art and heraldry across the world where they have added dramatic elegance to gardens for centuries. With very glossy large pages and spectacular close-up colour photographs throughout, this magnificent guide celebrates the ornamental charm and delicate petals of the lily, beginning with the history of the flower from Greek and Roman mythology to the hybridisation of today. It is a reference to more than 50 well-loved and unusual varieties from the towering and prolific Arabian Knight to the fiery Viva la Vida, the pink pollen-free Distant Drum to the tall blonde bombshell Yelloween, the cheerful Perfect Joy in pink and the sophisticated orange with red spotted Lilium Superbum! Mascara has a goth-horror to it and is a lauded 'black' Asiatic hybrid. With an engaging commentary on each bloom, easy-to-follow advice and glorious photography, get the best blooms for wedding and parties, outdoor spaces or the most bountiful cut flowers. 240pp, 25.4 x 19.6cm.

England's gardens range from the Baroque splendour of Blenheim Palace, whose vast acres were designed by Capability Brown at enormous expense, to the low-density suburban housing of the 19th and 20th centuries which were planned specifically to allow the ordinary householder to own his or her plot of land. In the early 17th century Capability Brown was a millionaire many times over, although his work at Blenheim came to an abrupt end when his client the Duchess of Marlborough, Queen Anne's favourite, fell out of favour, as described in the 2018 film starring Olivia Colman. Brown kept overall control of his vast projects by using large numbers of sub-contractors, so that the failure of one of them was not an overall disaster. The author of this study is an economist by profession, and there are some interesting conclusions in his statistics relating to the fruit and vegetable consumption, and life expectancy, of different classes. A prominent feature of large country houses was the Kitchen Garden maintained by hundreds of staff. A cook was likely to insist on a certain size of fruit or vegetable to preserve aesthetic standards at the dining table, and the result was huge quantities of wasted produce, so that eventually most kitchen gardens were phased out in favour of a daily expedition to Covent Garden or other markets. The head gardener was a prestigious position which in earlier times required the holder to be formally dressed and also to be married. When the famous gardener Joseph Paxton was appointed to Chatsworth at the age of only 23, he proposed to the niece of the Housekeeper on his first morning. Head gardeners wielded enormous power over the 100 or so staff under them, and could require an apprentice to move hundreds of miles away to another estate. Royalty has always had the means to lead the way in garden design, and the author examines the changing goals and expectations in royal patronage, from Henry VIII's Hampton Court to Prince Charles's Highgrove House, with an interesting aside on the horticultural role played by Camilla Parker-Bowles, now the Queen. In the 20th century gardening became a respectable occupation for middle class women, and a few, most famously Gertrude Jekyll, became leaders in garden design. 422pp, colour photos.

Having judged Britain in Bloom for 25 years, trained at RHS Wisley and worked for the GLC before becoming a Superintendent of the Central Royal Parks and then Superintendent of Greenwich Royal Park, Jim Buttress is now a judge at the RHS. He presides over the country's favourite flower shows including Chelsea and Hampton Court and has been watched by millions on the BBC's The Big Allotment Challenge. But how did this practical gardener from Purley go on to have one of the most impressive careers in British horticulture? In his warm and funny memoir, Jim takes us from his boyhood obsession with Percy Thrower to his working life with day-to-day duties including anything from having a drink and a chat with the Queen Mother to working out how to water some elephants who had taken up residence in Hyde Park. Jim also reveals what it's like to exhibit and to win gold at the Chelsea Flower Show and shares his many adventures as a judge including a threat with a punch on the nose from the odd irate loser. 'I've spent the vast majority of my life working with some of nature's most beautiful creations, and it has to be said in some pretty incredible settings.' He is a warm-hearted knowledgeable companion through his 306 page story complete with many colour photographs from his own albums.

Beautifully designed with modern graphic illustrations, bring home bouquets that brighten up your living room and learn ideas for planting bulbs and tubers that will bloom in early spring plus perennials for year-round colour. And all that from your balcony or windowsill which can bloom and grow abundantly throughout the seasons and also attract insects, bees and butterflies. It starts with the basics of pre-sowing and sowing, and working with the sun and preparing your boxes, then planting schemes for fresh and dried, sweet peas, wild and waving grasses, echinacea and sun flowers or a box full of beautiful blooming dahlias. Create a cottage garden box, a green winter box, late bloomers and winter colour and even learn the secret of cutting a lovely bunch of flowers or drying them. All about ready to use boxes, potting compost, seeds and flower facts and hardy plants you can sow direct into your box from April like the bupleurum, ox-eye daisy and pot marigold, one of which is edible! You can pickle the flower buds of the ox-eye daisy in vinegar for using as capers and all flowers will produce more buds if you keep cutting out the dead flowers. Includes planting 'recipes' in this beautifully illustrated 128 page book. Colour.

The Royal Horticultural Society in conjunction with publishers Thames & Hudson have created a beautiful mix of design, style and inspiration with over 500 colour illustrations. With plant hardiness charts, glossary and dreamy photographs of swimming pools, patterned pots, lit cascading steps, mosaics, cobblestones, miniature mosses and succulents and alpines, to meadows and mixing it up. When you look at a garden, you may feel drawn to plants whose colours and shapes have been arranged in a particular way. There is something about patterns that sets our minds alight. It serves many purposes - instantly gives a design or space order and structure, creates rhythm and make a garden or area feel unified and complete. This unique and practical guide to creating mood, proportion and scale is packed with inspiring photographs of gardens, borders and features with a wealth of ideas for adapting schemes to fit the area being planted including 'natural' designs as well as more formal approaches. Covers leaf shape and texture, garden layouts, symmetrical and formal, borders and bedding, patios, paths and decks, wall, fences and structures, patterns and water, patterns in garden furniture and large scale patterns. Very glossy paper, 224pp, 19 x 24.6cm, hundreds of colour photos.
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What is more inviting that a sunny garden, full of wonderful colours and the scent of flowers and who captured this better than the Impressionists with their canvasses full of colour and light? This warm Konemann publication explores the rich history and striking evolution of Impressionist garden paintings. By the 1860s, gardens were highly popular in France; the introduction and cross-breeding of new plant and flower species and the opening to the public of the former royal parks had stimulated a great horticultural movement. With their delight in colour, plein-air effects and modern-life themes, the Impressionists and their followers naturally turned to gardens for artistic inspiration. This book follows the spread of the Impressionist garden in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and illustrates not only masterpieces of Impressionism by Monet, Manet, Rousseau, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Morisot, Hanna Pauli, Caillebotte, Cezanne and others, but also works by such forebears as Delacroix, Corot, Courbet and later figures like Van Gogh, Gauguin, Klimt and Sargent and Max Liebermann and Seurat. Plus dappled and inviting tea parties by Pompeo Mariani, pointillism in the Orchard by Theo van Rysselberghe, the lady in red leaning on a lamppost by Jean-Louis Forain. Spectacular illustrations and accessible, engaging text, for the art lover or gardening enthusiast. 28.96 x 26.92cm. Hundreds of colour illustrations, many double page. 260 heavyweight with colour pages, amazing value for money for a glorious art book.
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Grown in the Middle East 2,000 years ago for its pleasing scent and medicinal properties, the rose has become one of the most adored flowers across cultures, no longer selected by nature, but by humans. The rose is well versed at enchanting human hearts, from Shakespeare's sonnets to Bulgaria's Rose Valley, to the thriving rose trade in Africa and the Far East, via museums, high fashion, Victorian England and Belle Epoque France. Bursting with meaning, over the centuries it has come to represent love and sensuality, deceit, death and the mystical unknown and even today is ever present at life's seminal moments. Here we meet an astonishing array of species and hybrids of remarkably different provenance in a story of a hardy, thorny flower and how by beauty and charm it came to seduce the world. Here are pagan, monotheistic roses, mystical, poetic and painted roses and rose gardens and gardening and the business today. Who said flower power was dead? 294pp, colour photos.

From 1936 to 1940, the newly-wed George Orwell lived in a small cottage in Hertfordshire, writing and tending his garden. When Rebecca Solnit visited the cottage, she discovered the descendants of the roses that he had planted many decades before. These survivors, as well as the diaries he kept of his planting and growing, provide a springboard for a fresh look at Orwell's motivations and drives, and the optimism that countered his dystopian vision. It opens up a profound meditation on our relationship to plants, trees and the natural world. Tracking his impact on political thought over the last century, Solnit journeys to England and Russia, Mexico and Columbia, exploring the political and historical events that shaped Orwell's life and her own. She follows his journey from the coalmines of England to taking up arms in the Spanish Civil War, from his prescient critique of Stalin to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism. She makes fascinating forays into colonial legacies in the flower garden, discovers photographer Tina Modotti's roses, reveals Stalin's obsession with growing lemons in impossibly cold conditions, and exposes the brutal rose industry in Columbia. A book of reflection, pleasure, beauty and joy as acts of resistance. 308pp, illus.

'Organic Crops for Pots and Small Plots', this beautiful large hardback tome has a foreword by Raymond Blanc. A new generation of gardeners are hungry for the know-how to transform their balconies, front doorsteps and back gardens into spaces to grow edibles. Anna Greenland, rising star of the organic grow-your-own scene, offers the jargon free inspiration, information and confidence to get you going from scratch. She has selected her Top 30 crops which are not only straightforward to grow, but also yield vegetables, herbs, fruits and edible flowers. Chapters cover Windowsills, Pots, Raised Beds, How to Grow, Troubleshooting, A Year-Round Planner, Crop Plans for Two Raised Beds, and the Top 30 and the Jargon Busting section. Alpine strawberries, a recipe for Rose Geranium Syrup which is delicious with Gin, Vodka or drizzled over ice cream, Rhubarb Shrub, Pickled Nasturtium Seeds or Butter, Coconut Calendula Salve for soothing stings and burns, all about apples, sage, parsley, chervil and chives, Gardener's Delight tomatoes on the vine, summer garden salads, French and runner beans, potatoes, chard, carrots and more. There is a monthly planner showing tasks and planting times for key crops, and compost recipes, weeding and feeding. A big glamorous handbook packed with colour photographs, 224pp.