With Spring upon us, now is the ideal time to get your green fingers moving. For this guide, we’ve chosen six gardening books, all of which will help you to get your garden looking in tip-top shape.
Phaidon has an extensive range of garden-related titles, all of which will give our green-fingered readers a huge amount of inspiration.
Below are the six gardening books we believe you should be reading and learning from.
Grow Fruit & Vegetables in Pots (February, £24.95) reveals the expert knowledge of Great Dixter’s Aaron Bertelsen on growing fruit and vegetables in containers. Part accessible cookbook, part practical gardening guide.
Whether you have a small window box, a few pots on the balcony or a garden area, Bertelsen shows that lack of space is no barrier to growing healthy, delicious homegrown ingredients.
This is the perfect gift to start readers’ own windowsills bursting with herbs that they’ve always dreamed of and ease them into making the perfect Basil Pavlova to show off their newfound gardening skills.
The Garden Chef: Recipes and Stories from Plant to Plate (May, £29.95) is an exclusive glimpse into the gardens of the world’s leading restaurants through fascinating stories and signature recipes from the kitchen gardens of 40 of the world’s best chefs.
Spotlighting both established and emerging talents, this book contains a wealth of beautiful images and insights as a unique source of inspiration for green-fingered food lovers across the world.
On Vegetables: Modern Recipes for the Home Kitchen (April, £29.95) presents more than 160 easy-to-follow recipes from acclaimed chef Jeremy Fox.
This is the perfect book for giving delicious, redefining vegetable-based cuisine a go, using creative methods and ingredient combinations to highlight the textures, flavours and varieties of seasonal produce.
Flower Colour Guide (October, £24.95) is the ultimate colour-by-colour flower reference guide from New York’s pre-eminent floral designers, Putnam and Putnam.
The book showcases over 400 flowers at their peak through stunning photography, making it perfect for the most seasoned flower enthusiasts as well as those just beginning to explore the possibilities of arranging flowers. It is a must-have for all those looking to brighten their homes with flowers and plants this season.
Green Escapes: The Guide to Secret Urban Escapes (May, £16.95) is an insider’s guide to the world’s greatest ‘secret’ gardens, green spaces and pocket parks tucked away in cities around the globe.
With all of the spaces featured being open to the public, this is a great book for planning readers’ next city escape with relaxation and escapism in mind, all whilst finding inspiration for the garden they’ve always dreamed of outside their back door.
Small in size and including a revolutionary number of hidden gems, this is the perfect book for finding tranquillity in amongst the hustle and bustle.
The Gardener’s Garden (January, £29.95) is the internationally bestselling inspirational resource for garden lovers and designers, sporting a gorgeous new cover design – bringing the book’s winning blend of authority and visual appeal to a wider-than-ever audience.
The Gardener’s Garden spans seven centuries to spotlight more than 250 of the globe’s finest permanent gardens by leading garden designers, horticulturalists, and landscape architects, brought to life via more than 1,000 sumptuous photographs and in descriptive texts by leading garden writers.
Phaidon’s full catalogue of books can be found at www.phaidon.com.