Having built myself a library, you would think I’d be spending all my time sitting about and reading. Unfortunately that’s so far from being the truth that I am rather embarrassed to admit it. Even when I have ‘spare’ time, there’s always another task…
If you have delved into my essential reading list, you will already know that I find the work of floral artist Azuma Makoto breathtaking, to the point of being moved to tears by it. In a world where one frequently feels one has seen…
Oh dear. Him Indoors has gone skiing and left me alone, at home, with only my credit card for company. It’s dangerous territory, and we both know it. Just ten minutes on Amazon earlier this week and I had parted with the best part…
“I’m always pleased to see a daffodil” confesses Oxford University botanist Dr Robert Scotland to the author of this new account of the ubiquitous spring flower. With those seven words he speaks for a nation. Narcissi, daffadillys, Lent lilies, jonquils, haverdrils, julians, daffydowndillies, call…
My initial response to the launch of “365 Days of Colour in Your Garden” at the end of 2015 was to ask myself whether gardeners really need another book on colour. Surely the subject has been amply covered by the likes of Percy Thrower (“Colour…
The promise of a new library has fuelled my growing obsession with books related to gardens and gardening. My Christmas list is a roll call of titles old and new, including Richard Mabey’s “The Cabaret of Plants“, Frank Lawley and Val Cobbins’ “Herterton House” and the late, great…
I love a new gardening book, which is a dangerous passion when so many fresh titles hit the shelves every year. Most are glossy, many interesting and just a handful destined to become classics. (Fewer still feature my own garden, so I confess to a degree of heathy bias…
“I don’t just like dahlias: I love them” asserts Andy Vernon on the opening page of his new book, The Plant Lover’s Guide to Dahlias. Even had he not spelt it out so explicitly, readers would have been left in no doubt of his passion for…
