“Dancing to architecture,” is how Frank Zappa once characterised music journalism, and I often think the same applies to writing about gardening. Only the most gifted wordsmiths, a category to which I can only aspire, will adequately convey the innumerable pleasures of gardening, meaning more often than not books dedicated to the subject are little more than a collection of great photographs, complemented by some very average prose.
There are, of course, many specialist companions and guides where it’s the information rather than the quality of writing that matters foremost. In this category I’d place Joyce Russell’s The Polytunnel Book (Frances Lincoln), Bob Flowerdew’s Companion Planting (Kyle Cathie), Alan Romans’ Potato Book (Frances Lincoln), and Neil Lucas’s Grasses (Timber Press). All four do exactly what they say on the tin, or more accurately on the jacket, imparting specialist, niche knowledge garnered over many years, in a clear and concise manner.
If you’re after something easily relatable and a bit closer to home, recommendations penned by Irish gardeners include former Chelsea Gold Medal winner Mary Reynolds’ insightful tale of her Damascene conversion in We Are The Ark (Timber Press), Helen Dillon’s timeless and often acerbic On Gardening (Town House), and Wicklow-based plantsman Jimi Blake’s (with Noel Kingsbury) A Beautiful Obsession (Filbert Press), a wonderfully illustrated record of his Hunting Brook garden’s development and its seasonal variety.
Sligo-based organic gardener Klaus Laitenberger’s quartet of self-published books – Vegetables for the Irish Garden, Fruit and Vegetables for the Polytunnel and Greenhouse, A Vegetable Grower’s Handbook and The Self-Sufficient Garden – contain everything the aspiring edible gardener could want, from enhancing soil fertility to a monthly seed sowing guide. For more details and to purchase go to greenvegetableseeds.com
In terms of reference books, no gardener should be without the RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening (DK), while those who treasure our native plants in their natural setting can’t afford to overlook Zoë Devlin’s indispensable Wildflowers of Ireland (Collins Press), a lifetime’s work delving deeper into that we regard as familiar.
In terms of gardening-themed yarns, Monty and Sarah Don’s The Jewel Garden (John Murray Press) sets the standard. This biographical book charts the Gardeners’ World presenter and his wife’s hubristic eighties exploits and the ruin that followed through to Monty’s reinvention and the steady creation of the Longmeadow garden they share and tend to this day. At times it’s mildly smug but the passages about Monty’s regular bouts of seasonal depression are a great leveller.
If it’s pure plant porn you’re after Piet Oudolf is the undisputed Dutch master. His books show off the best in big scale naturalistic planting. Tall perennials, ornamental grasses and subtle repetition are his hallmarks, captured in their finest splendour by Noel Kingsbury in Planting – A New Perspective (Timber Press).
Accordingly, the best has been saved for last. Derek Jarman’s Garden by Derek Jarman with photographs by Howard Sooley (Thames & Hudson) remains my all-time favourite gardening book and one that I return to regularly. Published in 1995, the year after the celebrated artist, film maker and activist died from an AIDS-related illness, this mesmerising collection helped to bring this now iconic Dungeness garden to a wider audience.
It captures perfectly the artistry, idiosyncrasy and passion that enabled Jarman to fashion a unique garden in the shingle around Prospect Cottage in the shadow of a nuclear power station.
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