It’s been an unusually abundant autumn, a mast year for fruit, berries and nuts. Just look at the pyracantha, which is positively glowing orange. The apple trees are laden, the oaks are festooned with acorns and sloes stud hedgerows. This week I have been choosing my favourite books of the year and it seems to have also been a mast year for writing about gardens. It’s been hard to whittle it down but here are my picks.
Garden Book of the Year
The Contemporary Garden
The Contemporary Garden showcases 300 outstanding gardens in more than forty countries across the globe
I don’t own a coffee table but this book has inspired me to get one as I cannot seem to stop showing it off. It is large scale, featuring an eclectic assortment of 300 contemporary gardens around the world, each accompanied by well-written and knowledgeable descriptions. The word “contemporary” in this context means over the past 30 years but a few new-in-old ones have crept in, such as the exotic reinvention of the Old Rose Garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex. It is organised by designer and not place, which is novel and interesting, and its choices are satisfyingly global — my list of gardens to visit across Europe and much further afield has grown considerably. There is a good mix of public and private gardens and, closer to home, I have spent the past few months visiting the public ones in London. These include Sarah Price’s community garden The Exchange in Erith; a topsy-turvy mix of containers in North Kensington; the Grass Gardens at the Horniman; and the prairie landscape around the US Embassy. A stunning collection that offers some much needed horticultural escapism. Phaidon, £44.95
Buy a copy
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The best of the rest
RHS Fungi for Gardeners, by Dr Jassy Drakulic
A brilliant how-to for all things fungi. It will help you know your scurfy twiglet from your fluted bird’s nest. Never again will you not know what a shaggy bracket is. Full of helpful illustrations and information about a subject that these days we all want to know more about. DK, £12.99
Buy a copy
How to Design a Garden, by Pollyanna Wilkinson
A private garden in Clapham, London from How to Design a Garden by Pollyanna Wilkinson
DORLING KINDERSLEY: RACHAEL WARNE
A gem of a book that is aimed at helping you to change up your garden, either as an update or from scratch. Wilkinson is a youngish garden designer with a knack for chatty explanations and easy-to-follow ideas. Her planting lists are particularly helpful. DK, £22
Buy a copy
The New Romantic Garden, by Jo Thompson
A beautiful book from an established garden designer with a love of old-fashioned favourites such as roses, irises, tulips and hydrangeas. She shares her thoughts and plans for 30 gardens shown in sumptuous style. Rizzoli, £38.95
Buy a copy
Gardenista: The Low Impact Garden, by Kendra Wilson
This is the year that “sustainable” became a little less earnest and this book is all about creating beauty while treading lightly. Wilson, an engaging and to-the-point writer, offers a plethora of practical tips, plus 12 examples of low-impact gardens, mostly in North America. Of course, there would have to be a Gardenista list of fave objects, which includes a covetable water bowser. Artisan, £35
Buy a copy
Waterwise Garden, by Tom Massey
The designer and garden innovator Tom Massey embraces ways to accommodate the “new normal” of climate change. This slightly geeky book, which is a design guide as well as a manual, is all about finding ways to sustain your garden through both drought and flood. The plant guide offers guidance for what to plant now. DK, £22
Buy a copy
A Year with Gilbert White, by Jenny Uglow
The early brimstone butterfly, dated 1792, features in A Year With Gilbert White
LINNEAN SOCIETY, LONDON
This is not a biography of the great nature writer who wrote the classic book The Natural History of Selborne in 1789, but more as if we have been invited to take a sojourn with him, a sort of naturalistic history gap year. Uglow is our guide, using White’s journals to reconstruct the year 1781. A loving and somewhat quirky endeavour. Faber, £25
Buy a copy
Nettles and Petals, by Jamie Walton
Jamie Walton
SAMUEL BINSTEAD
The subtitle for this book by the Gardeners World presenter and social media star says “Grow Food, Eat Weeds, Save Seeds”. You get the picture, and Walton provides a hugely enthusiastic guide here to veg gardening, weeds and all. “Let them bolt!” he enthuses about veg, which I found refreshing. Leaping Hare Press, £16.99
Buy a copy
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Gardener’s Questions
Q. The leaves of my rhubarb haven’t died down this autumn — in fact they have flourished and are acting as a mini greenhouse as there is significant new growth underneath. How should this be managed? Leave till the spring? Eat soon?
Jo Chambers
A. You will not be alone as plants, faced with our earlier mild autumn, are continuing to grow. The RHS says don’t pick after June or early July, so as not to weaken the plant. In the past, during warmer autumns, I have just left mine (not forgetting to mulch). Any picking should be very selective, though, and may taste tough.
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