Showing titles in Gardening & Horticulture

Discover Monty's thoughts and garden ideas around nature, seasons, colour, design, pests, flowering shrubs, containers and much more. Hear about the month-by-month jobs he does in his own garden that he hopes are relevant to you. Monty's warm voice brings this most intimate book to life - an enriching listen for any gardener. 

Nigel Slater has kept notebooks of curiosities and wonderings, penned while at his kitchen table, soaked in a fisherman’s hut in Reykjavik, sitting calmly in a moss garden in Japan or sheltering from a blizzard in a Vienna konditorei. Nigel records the small things, events and happenings that gave pleasure before they disappeared. In A Thousand Feasts he details a soup for breakfast, packing a suitcase for a trip and watching a butterfly settle on a carpet, hiding in plain sight. He gives short stories of feasts such as a mango eaten in monsoon rain or a dish of restorative macaroni cheese.

In 2020, Olivia Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual plants. The work drew her into an exhilarating investigation of paradise and its long association with gardens. Moving between real and imagined gardens, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to John Clare’s enclosure elegies, from a wartime sanctuary in Italy to a grotesque aristocratic pleasure ground funded by slavery, Laing interrogates the sometimes shocking cost of making paradise on earth.

In May 2022, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences released a paper that measured fourteen European countries on three factors: biodiversity, wellbeing, and nature connectedness. Britain came last in every single category. The findings are clear. We are suffering, and nature is too. Enter ‘Wild Service’ – a visionary concept crafted by the pioneers of the Right to Roam campaign, which argues that humanity’s loss and nature’s need are two sides of the same story. Blending science, nature writing and indigenous philosophy, this groundbreaking book calls for mass reconnection to the land.

My Garden World by Monty Don is a celebration of every living creature that we all share. This year has given us the enforced opportunity to learn more about the fascinating natural world around us. Whether you live in the countryside or the town, Monty's observations and insights are relevant to each and every one of us. My Garden World is Monty Don's personal journey through the natural year, month by month, season by season, observed from the immediate world around him.

Ready to unlock the secrets to a lush garden oasis, even if you’ve never held a trowel in your life? Tired of old, boring gardening books? Ahhh, livin’ the dream. Your own delicious organic food forest growing right outside your window. A harvest so bountiful, it feeds you, your family, and the whole neighborhood. Year-round abundance. Yummy homegrown tomatoes. What a life! Sounds like true wealth, doesn’t it? And yet, sometimes, the dream seems so far out of reach. Ever felt this way?

Filled with expert tips and hundreds of beautiful photographs, celebrated dahlia educator Kristine Albrecht shares her dahlia growing secrets. Drawing on 18 years of growing experience, she has written the most detailed and comprehensive book on dahlia care.

Your pathway to a sustainable, self-sufficient life is closer than you think... Acquire the skills to become a master homesteader, even if you're starting from scratch, or live in the middle of the city! Have you dreamed of living off the land, creating your food source, and fostering a life of resilience and sustainability? Is the idea of homesteading appealing yet filled with a million questions and doubts?

As development and subsequent habitat destruction accelerate, there are increasing pressures on wildlife populations. But there is an important and simple step toward reversing this alarming trend: Everyone with access to a patch of earth can make a significant contribution toward sustaining biodiversity. Bringing Nature Home has sparked a national conversation about the link between healthy local ecosystems and human well-being, and this audio edition will help broaden the movement. By acting on Douglas Tallamy's practical recommendations, everyone can make a difference.

When Monty Don's golden retriever, Nigel, became the surprise star of BBC's Gardeners' World, inspiring huge interest, fan mail and even his own social media accounts, Monty Don wanted to explore what makes us connect with animals quite so deeply. In many respects Nigel is a very ordinary dog - charming, handsome and obedient, as so many are. He is also a much loved family pet. He is also a star. By telling Nigel's story, Monty relates his relationships with other special dogs in his life in a memoir of his dogs past and very much present.

Florapedia is an eclectic A-Z compendium of botanical lore. With more than 100 enticing entries - on topics ranging from achlorophyllous plants that use a fungus as an intermediary to obtain nutrients from other plants to zygomorphic flowers that admit only the most select pollinators - this collection is a captivating journey into the realm of botany. Writing in her incomparably engaging style, Carol Gracie discusses remarkable plants from around the globe, botanical art and artists, early botanical explorers, ethnobotanical uses of plants, botanical classification, and more.

There's a lot of gardening advice out there. But none that invites you to think about how to be while you're in your garden. With increasingly busy lives, yet another list of chores seems like the last thing we need when it comes to our own practice of self-care and relaxation. After all, aren't these the things we wanted to escape to the garden for in the first place? 

National treasure and presenter of ITV's hugely popular Love Your Garden Alan Titchmarsh brings us his month by month almanac of garden knowledge, facts, advice and inspiration. Here is seasonal advice on what to grow and sow, projects to engage in, as well as wildlife to spot, gorgeous gardens to visit, birds and flowers to celebrate, weather notes and nature to reflect on in poems, music and books.

Ben fell in love with orchids as a nine-year-old, when his parents bought him a Cymbidium. That love then led him to spend his twenties in various tropical cities, teaching English and exploring jungles where exotic orchid species grew wild, pollinated by hummingbirds, huge moths and more. After a decade abroad, Ben returned to the UK. Here, his passion re-ignited when he encountered a colony of Bee orchids, a cryptic species which tricks bees into mating with its flowers. Ben was entranced.

To grow produce of the highest nutritional quality the essential minerals lacking in our soil must be replaced, but this re-mineralization calls for far more attention to detail than the simple addition of composted manure or NPK fertilizers. The Intelligent Gardener demystifies the process, while simultaneously debunking much of the false and misleading information perpetuated by both the conventional and organic agricultural movements. In doing so, it conclusively establishes the link between healthy soil, healthy food, and healthy people.

The universal appeal of Laura Ingalls Wilder springs from a life lived in partnership with the land, on farms she and her family settled across the Northeast and Midwest. In this revealing exploration of Wilder's deep connection with the natural world, Marta McDowell follows the wagon trail of the beloved Little House series. You'll learn details about Wilder's life and inspirations, pinpoint the Ingalls and Wilder homestead claims on authentic archival maps, and learn to grow the plants and vegetables featured in the series. Excerpts from Wilder's books, letters, and diaries bring to light her profound appreciation for the landscapes at the heart of her world. 

When Charles and Perrine Hervé-Gruyer set out to create their farm in an historic Normandy village, they had no idea just how much their lives would change. Neither one had ever farmed before. Charles had been circumnavigating the globe by sail, operating a floating school that taught students about ecology and indigenous cultures. Perrine had been an international lawyer in Japan. Each had returned to France to start a new life.

Delve into the home of the world's most beloved bear! The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh explores the magical landscapes where Pooh, Christopher Robin, and their friends live and play. The Hundred Acre Wood - the setting for Winnie-the-Pooh's adventures - was inspired by Ashdown Forest, a wildlife haven that spans more than 6,000 acres in southeast England.

This book has been written for anyone who has heard the whispers of the wild and has been stirred to know more, for those with a political conscience and for lovers of the outdoors. Whether you are new to the ways of herbs or already a practising herbalist, it explains how you can take your physical and mental health into your own hands using the plants that grow around you. 

Call it "Zen and the Art of Farming" or a "Little Green Book", Masanobu Fukuoka's manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book "is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical."