Gardens & Flowers

We may all feel we know what an "English" garden is, but do we really? England's Gardens offers a holistic, modern-day tour and an update on the history of some of the most iconic, enduring, and influential gardens across the country.

A fresh take on a much-loved subject, this book will help you get to know England's gardens up close and personal. Garden historian Stephen Parker leads you through England's horticultural history, unearthing the cultural context and hidden stories behind the gardens, and bringing lesser-known garden makers to the fore. In five detailed historical chapters, Parker explores the making of the so-called "English" garden - from its origins in the formal splendour of stately homes, all the way to climate-change resilience and future-facing designs of the modern era.

Inside the pages of this stunning book on England's country gardens, you will find:

- 5 chapters of detailed narrative essays arranged in chronological order.
- Detailed profiles showcase significant garden makers.
- More than 20 photography-led garden case studies explore key gardens to visit in England today.
- Stunning, full-bleed, contemporary photography brings the gardens to life.
- Archival photography and historical art sheds light on the history and making of the gardens.

Discover the best gardens to visit today - with garden case studies showcasing everything England's gardens have to offer through stunning contemporary photography and careful analysis of planting schemes and garden makers' creative influences. From iconic sites like Sissinghurst and Great Dixter, to more unusual examples such as Prospect Cottage and The Laskett - this book celebrates England's gardens in all their glorious diversity, sublime beauty, and exuberant eccentricity.

Discover the secret to successfully growing and nurturing beautiful roses.

Ideal for first-time gardeners, Grow Roses contains everything you need to bring spectacular colours and gorgeous scents to your garden.

Learn how to grow and care for a variety of roses with tips on selecting the right site, planting, and pruning. Discover the perfect roses for your own outdoor space with a handy directory of the best varieties for every situation, as well as the ideal plants to grow alongside them. With their ease of cultivation, tolerance to varied climates, and sublime beauty, roses are the perfect flower for the modern garden.

Packed with practical, jargon-free know-how, this easy-to-use guide has everything you need to know to help your garden Grow.

Discover how to assess, grow and maintain a shady garden.Ideal for first-time gardeners, Grow Shade Garden contains everything you need to create a flourishing garden full of colour, texture and scent in a shady space.Learn how to grow and care for a variety of shade-loving plants with tips on selecting the right site and varieties. Once you understand different types of shade and have assessed your space, select the best plants for your garden with the help of handy directories that profile different shrubs, perennials, bulbs, and trees, and provide key growing information. Projects on tree planting, container displays, and creating a fernery also get you started on planting techniques and ideas to make the most of a shaded space.Packed with practical, jargon-free know-how, this easy-to-use guide has everything you need to know to help your garden Grow.

Venture into the tiny worlds of terrariums and discover how to create a universe of your own.

Like an artist, you’ll learn how to use planting and hardscaping to make stunning terrarium compositions. Plus, master the fundamentals of successful growing – soil, water, and light – so your plants thrive.

Put theory into practice with step-by-step projects of 13 terrariums:

- Repurpose a spice jar to create a stunning yet small terrarium on a budget
- Replicate natural environments in your home with planting and hardscaping choices, such as the fallen branch terrarium
- Express yourself by including playful figurines to create fun imaginary worlds
- Try a bioactive terrarium, adding custodians to thrive in these mini ecosystems

With a combination of projects and deep dives into plant groups and care advice, you’ll be well on your way to curating your own terrarium wonderland with Hello Tiny World.

Transform your garden into a haven for all kinds of wildlife.In a world with too much concrete and not enough greenery, every wildlife-friendly garden can make a huge difference. But what if we told you that you can make a difference to your local wildlife from the comfort of your own home? You can help to reverse the decline in bird numbers and much more by creating a haven in which they will thrive!Let author, presenter, and wildlife conservationist Dan Rouse show you how you can make your outdoor space more welcoming for a wide variety of visitors, from planting pollinator-friendly perennials to providing access for curious hedgehogs. Learn the best ways to provide shelter, food, and water, discover the best planting choices and how they can help, then sit back and watch as your garden becomes a much-needed refuge for a huge range of species.Dive straight in to- A beautiful mixture of full-colour illustrations and photos of different species.- Practical advice on supporting local wildlife, with ideas suitable for all budgets and abilities.- Suggestions for beneficial plant choices for a range of climate and soil types.- Step-by-step projects tailored to both attracting wildlife and to observe the wildlife that visits the garden.- Ideas for small gardens and outdoor spaces, as well as practical considerations such as pets and children sharing a garden with wildlife.- Final chapter on 'Observing garden wildlife' that showcases low- and high-tech methods of watching for wildlife, and how to connect with the wider wildlife community.The book features plenty of projects to help you attract and observe your new garden visitors, as well as galleries of common species you can expect to see. Following in the footsteps of its sister title How to Attract Birds to Your Garden , everything in the book is clear, accessible, and engaging, with plenty of budget-friendly tips and ideas suitable for gardeners and non-gardeners alike.Packed with equal parts expertise and passion, How to Attract Wildlife to Your Garden proves that, by giving nature opportunities to thrive, we all ourselves, our planet, and the wildlife that may call our garden home.

Take your gardening to the next level…with flowers! After learning how to manage their houseplants and grow their own food, this highly stylized, fully illustrated, modern guidebook teaches reluctant green thumbs to brighten up their gardens with flowers.

Did you know that begonias can be dug up in the fall, stored indoors in the winter, and be ready to be planted and bloom again in the spring? That daylilies need to be divided every three to four years to produce more blooms? Or that marigolds can be both a beautiful and helpful addition to a vegetable garden as a natural deterrent to common garden pests?

Whether you’re a first-time gardener or an experienced green thumb looking to learn more about flowers, this book is your must-have guide! How to Grow Flowers in Small Spaces​ features 40 beautiful flowers (from smaller pincushion flowers to towering lilacs) that can all be grown in containers or small spaces. Along with detailed care instructions and beautiful illustrations of each plant, you’ll also find everything you need to know for your floral garden to flourish, including:
-How to establish a garden bed (no matter the size!)
-How to determine which flowers are best grown from seeds or from transplants
-How to water your flowers for optimal growth (whether they’re in the ground or in a container)
-How to turn those blooms into a beautiful home-grown bouquet
-And much more!

No more trips to the florist—with How to Grow Flowers in Small Spaces, your home and garden will be bursting with color to keep you healthier and happier than ever. From peonies and marigolds to snapdragons and foxgloves, grab your gloves and get to gardening!

Never find yourself stuck for gardening advice again with this handy and informative book in your garden shed, packed with advice from the experts at Kew Gardens, London.

Kew Answers for Everyday Gardeners solves all your gardening conundrums, from pest control to pruning, and wildlife to weather management, with a series of 100 questions.

Polly Stevens, manager of decorative displays at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew shares her answers to the questions she gets asked most by visitors to the gardens – from pest control to wildlife care, planting advice to pruning. For each question there is a clear answer and expert tips and techniques.

The questions include:
 

• How do I tell what kind of soil I have?
• What is the best time of year to prune?
• How do I make a wildlife pond?
• How do I deal with pests without using chemicals?
• How do I collect rainwater?

Written with the modern gardener in mind, the advice prioritizes solutions that care for the environment, with guidance on chemical-free gardening, environmentally friendly methods for pest and disease control, and encouraging wildlife.

This is a beautiful and practical guide for everyday gardeners, destined to become a staple on every gardener's bookshelf. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about gardening, from experts, in an easy-to-navigate guidebook. Whatever gardener you are: urban, rural, hobbyist, professional, young, old, spring- or autumn-planter, this book has all the advice you need.

Holistic, accessible, and beautifully illustrated, this is an essential and timely guide to the world's key plant and fungus species.

Written by specialist experts, Plants and Fungi is a botanical exploration of the world's most fascinating species, many of which are also highly valued for their ecological, economic, and cultural importance.

In this book, you will find:

• An exploration of all of the main groups - from the fleeting wildflowers that bring life to deserts to the towering giant trees of tropical rainforest giants, and from the lichens of the Arctic to the cultivated seaweeds of South East Asia
• The spectacular diversity of plants and fungi, the ecosystems they support, their symbiotic relationships with animals and each other, and their use in everything from food to clothing and medicine.
• Explanations of the ecological, economic, and cultural importance of plants and fungi

The book explores how Plants and Fungi grow and reproduce and how they have evolved to adapt to every continent on Earth – even in the harshest conditions – while celebrating their beauty and diversity and telling the story of the world's more unusual and intriguing species.

Project Mushroom will teach you everything you need to know to identify, grow, display and cook edible mushrooms. 

Mushrooms are good for us and for the environment: they are a sustainable, easy-to-grow food source and full of nutritional goodness. But they can also be attractive and useful additions to our homes and gardens – whether displayed in ceramic vases, on macrame or even used to make ink, paper or seed pots. In this book, mushroom experts Lorraine and Jodie Caley (aka the Caley Brothers) provide more than 30 projects so you can grow mushrooms at home.

• An extensive introduction de-mystifies mushrooms, explains their benefits (for our health and the environment) and gives you a mushroom-growing starter kit
• Provides simple, easy-to-follow techniques for growing all types of mushroom
• Discover striking ways to display and use mushrooms in the home: make sustainable hanging decorations or learn how to grow mushrooms in a book
• Learn how to garden with mushrooms: make a mushroom bed or display varieties in seasonal containers
• Experiment with easy recipes for adding mushrooms to your store cupboard, including a Vitamin D boost, mushroom tincture and dried mushroom powder 
• Includes a beautifully illustrated directory to help you identify mushrooms

This guide takes out the technical jargon, provides fascinating inspiration and answers all your burning questions. With so many ideas to explore, it celebrates the magic of mushrooms and demonstrates that mushroom growing doesn’t have to be scary.

Created in collaboration with the world-renowned Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and with an extensive introduction and a directory of mushrooms, this book is a must-have for any modern mushroom lover.

Just as a parent leaves a legacy to their child, a tree leaves a legacy to its surroundings. A deep and explorative companion piece to the Roger Deakin Award-winning The Draw of The Sea.

Throughout history, trees have determined the tools we use, the boats we build, the stories we tell about the world and ourselves, the songs we sing, and some of our most important rituals. As such, our lives are intertwined with those of the trees and woodlands around us.

In this journey deep into the woods, Wyl Menmuir travels the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland to meet the people who plant trees, the ecologists who study them, those who shape beautiful objects and tools from wood, and those who use them to help others.

Wyl also explores how our relationship with trees is enduring, now and in the future – what we get out of spending time around trees, the ways in which our relationship with them has changed over time, and the ways in which our future is interconnected with theirs.

Written in close collaboration with makers, crafters, bodgers, and woodsmen and women in order to better understand the woods they know so well, the joys and frustrations of working with a living material, and the stories of their craft and skills, The Heart of The Woods will delight anyone who enjoys walking among the trees, and anyone who, when lost, has found themselves in the woods.


Chapters include:

WOODLAND PLANTER: A woodland in becoming and an ancient yew grove on the border of North Wales and England

RITUAL WEAVER: Willow coffin making in Cornwall

WOODLORE GATHERER: Science among the trees at Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire

HEARTWOOD CARVER: Among the bodgers in a field outside Cambridge

BOAT BUILDER: A woodland community in the heart of Glasgow’s former docklands

LANDSCAPE SHAPER: Re-wilding the Scottish Highlands and an organised trespass in Devon

WISH WEARER: The clootie well at Munlochy on The Black Isle, Scottish Highlands, a family tree on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, and the tree at Sycamore Gap, Northumbria

FOREST BATHER: Swimming at Swallowship Pool, Devil’s Water, and Letah Woods Northumberland

MYTH WALKER: Walks in the fictional woods at Wenlock Edge, Shropshire

WAY FOLLOWER: Traditional carpentry in Takayama, Japan

FIRE LIGHTER: The stories we find among the flames and embers, Ennistymon, Ireland 

SOUND CREATOR: A pub on Ireland’s west coast and a guitar-builder in North Wales 

APPLE WAILER: Wassailing in Cornwall

TREE WORSHIPPER: An ancient yew grove in North Wales

Exploding myths and offering research-backed advice, this book provides a shortcut to decades of gardening experience by explaining the science behind how a garden grows. Why does my cherry tree blossom but never fruit? What's the most effective slug deterrent? Could I breed my own unique variety of flower? The world of gardening can be a mystifying place, with so many instructions to follow and often little explanation as to why. From hands-on advice to an exploration of the mental health benefits of gardening, and the positive impact gardening can have during a climate crisis, The Science of Gardening debunks myths, and reveals the latest science only taught at horticultural college. As a passionate newcomer to gardening, daunted by the mountain of often conflicting advice in gardening manuals, Dr Stu has set about testing the scientific basis of conventional wisdom and practice so you too can garden like a pro.

This beautifully-illustrated gift book reveals the hidden meanings of over 50 popular flowers.

Did you know that the type of flowers you give can speak volumes? The Secret Language of Flowers is a fascinating insight into the Victorian tradition of using flowers to convey secret messages in a society where feelings often had to be suppressed. Samantha Gray reveals how over 50 blooms acquired their meanings in folklore and how they became the language of courtship, love, friendship, beauty and more – discover how lily of the valley symbolises the return of happiness, how bluebells stand for constancy and everlasting love, and how daffodils represent high regard and chivalry. With stunning illustrations by artist Sarah Perkins that capture all of the beauty of flowers, this is an exceptionally lovely and fascinating gift book.

Discover the uses and symbolic meanings of flowers over the centuries and across the globe.Flowers have been depicted as objects of beauty and wonder in countless paintings and poems, exchanged as tokens of love and affection, and displayed as symbols of both celebration and remembrance - "saying it with flowers" is truly part of the human experience.But how does the significance of flowers vary across cultures and at different points in history?And what makes certain flowers special?The Secret Language of Flowers explores the meaning of more than 85 flowers, tracing their history as symbols and charting their role in folklore and mythology around the world.This fascinating book on flowers can help you -Unlock the meaning of flowers throughout history - from early peoples to the 19th-century.- Discover the Victorian language of flowers popular in the US, UK, and Europe.- Gain an insight into folklore and mythology in relation to different flowers.- Uncover what flowers mean in various cultures around the world.-Uncover traditional medicinal uses of plants, such as aloe, which is used to treat burns.Uncover the rich and fascinating histories of individual flowers - the sunflower, for example, which was regarded by the Aztecs as a symbol of war, but became a symbol of devotion in 19th-century painting due to the fact that it "turns its head" to follow the sun. Learn about the function of flowers in society, from the practical to the playful - flowers have been used as remedies and tonics - tea tree and coneflower (or echinacea), for example - as well as as a means of sending cryptic messages to lovers and friends.The Secret Language of Flowers is an entertaining guide to the rich stories that lie beyond the seductive aromas and dazzling beauty of flowers of all kinds. Each flower featured throughout the book is arranged by season, from the first snowdrops and primroses of spring, the glorious roses of summer, the stunning fuchsias and dahlias of autumn to the holly and poinsettia of the winter months, there's a flower for everyone to fall in love with.At DK, we believe in the power of discovery.So why stop there?If you like The Secret Language of Flowers, then why not try Great Loves which celebrates some of the most famous romances in history, or Lost Masterpieces to discover extraordinary stories behind the world's missing works of art.

Eat homegrown food all year round and save money on your weekly shop by following a simple plan for self-sufficiency.Huw Richards and Sam Cooper have spent the past two years planning and trialling their very own self-sufficiency garden in a 10x13m plot and now they've worked out the perfect formula. Grow six portions of nutritious veg a day per person following their month-by-month growing plan, which is realistic and flexible with cost, space, and time in mind.Content will Introductory section outlining Huw's self-sufficiency his goals and approaches- Creating your how to build all the growing spaces you will need, such as hot beds and polytunnels- Month-by-month planting plans and guidance on key tasks throughout the year- Recipes and kitchen meal prep, storage, and preserving ideas along with base recipes so you can make the most of your cropsFollow Huw and Sam's tried-and-tested methods and save money while enjoying homegrown food all year.

An easy-to-use, beautifully illustrated book to help you know the key things to do in your garden through 2023.

How soon can I sow my sweet peas? When should I prune my clematis? What can I do to add plenty of winter colour to my borders? Is there anything to do in January? Find the answers to all these questions and more with Your Gardening Year 2023 - a book that every gardener should have as they embark on a new year of planting, sowing, pruning, and growing. This easy-to-use gardening guide is packed with essential tasks and top tips for every month of the year, with sections on general garden care, growing fruit and vegetables, and getting the best out of containers.

Discover which plants will look their best each month and mark the progression of the seasons with a dedicated note section so you can record your garden successes and make plans for next year. With beautiful illustrations to accompany each month, Your Gardening Year 2023 is a must-have resource for all gardeners--whether you're looking for a handy at-a-glance guide for yourself or a gift for a green-fingered loved one.

Get your gardening gloves on and join the journey as you explore:

- Twelve chapters, one for each month, featuring the following content
- 'Around the Garden' pages offer short, easy-to-follow garden tasks for a range of subjects, including 'General Care',
- 'Trees, Shrubs, and Climbers', 'Perennials, Annuals, Bulbs, and Bedding', and 'Containers', alongside a series of 'Ten-minute Tasks' to help readers make best use of their time in the garden
- Dedicated pages on 'The Kitchen Garden', with 'Harvest Highlights' showcasing the very best produce that month.
- Illustrated 'At Their Best' profile spreads showcase five plants with seasonal appeal.
- 'Get Ahead' activities for readers wanting to make the most of their time.
- A notes page for readers to record their gardening successes and observations.
- At-a-glance crop planner showing when to sow, plant out, and harvest popular vegetables and fruits.
- Beautiful illustrations to add a timely and inspirational reminder of the garden that month.

A must-have volume for the novice gardener looking for tips and tricks as they get into the rhythm of the gardening year, and doubling up as great gift purchase for the gardening lover in your life!