Gardening Book List
Gardening Book List
Recommendations and my own wishlist for 2023
Making a list and checking it twice…
Often at this time of year I have emails and messages from gardening friends asking about book suggestions for Christmas for themselves or others. Since my obsession with gardening really took flight with the reading I did after beginning work at a local nursery, I know that practical gardening books can be really helpful in falling further in love with plants. These books will help in that journey. Some are new and some old, but all are worth reading and rereading. I will also share the books that are on my own wishlist this year!
Old Favorites
“A mixed border offers the greatest scope, because in it you can include trees, shrubs, climbers, perennials (both hardy and tender), biennials, annuals, bulbs - the whole lot. There is no logical reason for restricting yourself… Successions are my main concern, but they are linked to other aspects of good gardening and must work hand in hand with them.”
Christopher Lloyd, Succession Planting for Year-Round Pleasure
These books all would be good for helping a keen gardener to deepen their knowledge of plants and plant relationships. A few of these are older books, so if the Amazon links below do not lead to reasonably priced new or used copies, then be sure to check second-hand booksellers, such as Abebooks, Thrift Books, Ebay, etc.
The best descriptions of the elaborately, layered plantings at Great Dixter can be found in Christopher Lloyd’s classic book, Succession Planting for Year-Round Pleasure. If I could get you each a copy of one book, it would probably be this one. This was the last book Christo published during his life, and I think it is a fitting tribute to the gardening that he did himself at Great Dixter, and a view of the garden at this important transitional point to the care of Fergus Garrett. This book holds some of the reasons why Dixter has been such a source of inspirational for so many amazing modern gardeners.
If you would like to really understand plants and why they grow sometimes and not others, this book is the place to start. Capon is a Brit who now grows and teaches in the US, and I found his book on my curriculum list from the RHS fifteen years ago when I was studying for their professional exams. It is full of practical plant science, but in easy to read terms that will help the home gardener without being too overwhelming. The new edition linked here differs by its cover from the one that is in my photo at the top: Botany for Gardeners by Brian Capon.
If you have seen the Piet Oudolf gardens in New York (The High Line) or Chicago (Lurie Garden), then you will love Designing with Plants by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury. This is a very accessible book with gets into the hows and whys of perennial plantings, particularly how to put them together so that they flow well in groups and through the seasons.
New Standards
“All gardens exist on two levels - the real garden on the one hand and the imagined or remembered one on the other. This grove has a life all of its own in my imagination, and I can turn to it at any time of year.”
Sue Stuart-Smith, The Well-Gardened Mind
If you are at all interested in the connection between gardens and mental health, or in horticultural therapy, then The Well-Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith is for you. Sue is a psychologist and married to one of my favorite award-winning designers, Tom Stuart-Smith. Together they are creating a wonderful project at their home in Serge Hill for their community to learn about plants. This project seems to have grown out of the years of research that Sue compiled for her amazing book. After reading Sue’s book I felt sure that I wanted to go ahead with my plan of bringing therapy groups into our own garden at Havenwood in the next decade. It was a practical help to learn about the many ways horticultural therapy is being used in Europe and the US. Highly recommended.
Building on both the previous topics of naturalist planting and community accessibly, this book, Naturalistic Planting Design, provides an amazing look at the urban projects of Nigel Dunnett. Nigel is professor of planting design and vegetative ecology at Sheffield University, where he is training gardeners and designers to consider the joy of larger-scale plantings in public spaces. There is a generosity in Nigel’s design work that really speaks to me and, I know, other plant lovers.
If you are interested in a practical guide on how to build an environment for rock plants, The Crevice Garden by Kenton Seth & Paul Spriggs is the newest standard in rock gardening books. This book was loaned to me by a gardener friend who is crazy about the fascinating world of rock garden plants, and it is really interesting as a book that stretches me into a group of plants that I know little about, and also is the perfect guide for how to go about beginning such a garden, whether large on the ground or small in a pot. It was published in 2022, so is relatively new off the press.
My Wishlist this Year
The garden design book of the year award should go to Piet Oudolf at Work by Piet Oudolf, with an intro by Cassian Schmidt. I have yet to lay my hands on a copy, hence it being named to this wishlist. Earlier this spring when it released, Tom Stuart-Smith (who I mentioned above) said: “If you are interested in garden design and the work of the greatest and you buy one book on his work, this should be it… Above all it’s the planting plans that get me salivating. Typical of Piet’s generosity to share all this.” Here is a glimpse from Tom on Instagram. There are many tales of Piet’s generosity in the horticultural world, and his book bears this out in his work for all of us to see. Looking forward to this one!
This book comes from another prof from the University of Sheffield - Sowing Beauty: Designing Flowering Meadows from Seed by James Hitchmough. I have enjoyed watching James begin a new garden in the UK, as well as seeing his larger projects. The book intro reads: “This book is… about utilizing an understanding of how naturally occurring plant communities function ecologically, and then transferring this understanding to help design, establish, and manage visually dramatic herbaceous vegetation in gardens, urban parks, and other urban greenspaces.” Yes and amen. Let’s make our gardens that way.
I have been more and more captivated by the work of designer Arne Maynard this year as his new head gardener is an old garden blogging friend of mine. Seeing his many photos of Arne’s place in Wales has been such a gift. The Gardens of Arne Maynard by Arne Maynard is an older book, but one that I have not yet gotten to sit with on a winter’s evening.
Which gardening books would you recommend for this year? Love to hear!
*Amazon Affiliate links are included in this newsletter. I make a few cents per recommendation, each of which I hope will be helpful to you!