Gardening books are great fun to give and get, but they are not always directly about gardening. They cater for garden-watchers, travellers, lovers of memoirs and tales with a celebrity tinge. There is much less on how to grow things or improve our standards of cultivation.
Serious gardeners will certainly enjoy the new Meadows by the experienced hand of Christopher Lloyd (Timber Press $29.95/£14.10, online only in Europe). He has looked after an established meadow in the major garden at Great Dixter and he writes with real authority on the pitfalls and possibilities of a style that can sound fatally attractive. It is never as easy as the photographs make it look, and this invaluable book is based on proper thought and practice. It is the best "how to" guide of the year.
At the opposite extreme, travellers in time and space have two attractive options. Many people will be glad to receive Eduardo Mencos's Hidden Gardens of Spain (Frances Lincoln £30/$50). The topic has been neglected and the photographs here are extremely beguiling. The author has found the way into all sorts of private gardens, from one "under the volcano" in Tenerife to some well-photographed patches of green in the city of Barcelona. The star turn is the superb garden at the Palacio de Oca in the north-west in garden-friendly Galicia. Here, the Duke of Segorbe presides over one of the great gardens of the world, possibly the greatest in several experts' opinion. Much of it is still being very well restored, but I think FT readers will particularly respond to the symbolic theme of three separate gardens related to boats on the waters of this lovely place. They stand for a trio that all investors know only too well: Trading, Purgatory and Paradise. The book is worth its price for the section on this neglected masterpiece.
Back in time, its natural pair is the beautiful Gardens of the Roman World by the intelligent eye and pen of Patrick Bowe (Lincoln/ J. Paul Getty Museum £35/$50). He is good on the impact of ancient Roman styles of gardening on the subsequent history of gardens, including our own. Obviously, Pompeii has to take up a prominent space, although I myself am always thankful that I did not have to write columns about the gardens in that ancient town. They seem perfectly suited to a competition for Small Garden of the Year at a Chelsea Flower Show. However, Patrick Bowe shows us there was much more around in the Roman era. The younger Pliny's famous missive on one of his gardens is the most influential letter to have survived from the classical world.
Much more is being written nowadays about mixing and placing plants for their form and colour. These books do help us to start up our own style, sometimes by applying their basic categories, sometimes by disagreeing with their bossiness. The experienced planter and nursery-owner, Carol Klein's Plant Personalities (which is actually published next March in the US, Timber $29.95; not available in UK) divides different plants into groups for their aesthetic qualities. She writes on "Shooting Stars" and on "Prickly Customers" or "Soft Touches". This dimension is often best developed in gardens by flower arrangers. Klein brings to bear her skill as an arranger of shapes and flowers for her magnificent exhibits in recent years at the Chelsea show. Everyone can learn something from her knowledge.
Celebrity books tend to be thin. From all the various television teams, the one I prefer is The Jewel Garden by Monty Don and his wife Sarah (Hodder £20/$38.22). I remember his previous volume on the garden that had to be abandoned when their jewellery business collapsed in 1987. Since then, they have decamped to Herefordshire and have made up for some of the lost sparkle with a garden whose making is a readable and encouraging story.
Chatty books make excellent presents, even if they end up on a side table beside the loo. Elspeth Thompson's The London Gardener (Frances Lincoln £12.99/ $17.95) deserves a different home because it is full of worthwhile information on growing things in London, and where to see lesser-known London gardens. In a more relaxed style, I enjoyed Charles Elliott's The Transplanted Gardener (Frances Lincoln £14.99/$24.95). The pleasant, short reflections range from "Mole Wars" to the difference between grounds-keeping and gardening, and the story about a woman who found that somebody stole her hedge of Leyland Cypress. I often wish that some poor soul would come and steal mine.
I have not been swept away this year by any particular book on garden design. But look out for Christopher Bradley-Hole's soon-to-be published Making the Modern Garden (Mitchell Beazley/Monacelli Press £25/$40), which does take you into styles and hard-surfaced areas that are rigorously excluded from this column. However, I do not live in a modern environment or in places where such a way-out approach might sit well in the landscape. The book is not the last word, but it is clear and aptly illustrated, and I think that beginners who want to be "bold and 21st-century" would find that it helps them to get started.
My personal favourite of the year is from the intelligent pen of Jenny Uglow. Her A Little History of British Gardening (Chatto and Windus/North Point Press £15.99/$35) is perceptive, well written and not stuck on the usual beaten track. So much on this topic becomes bogged down in detailed plans of gardens now lost to us, but she draws us through the changing styles in a most engaging way. It is a really thoughtful book and even non-gardeners should romp through it.
She will understand if I say that the best light reading on the topic to reappear this year are still the three collections of newspaper articles by Vita Sackville West. Frances Lincoln has re-issued replicas of these unsurpassed pieces. They unite a literary turn with practical knowledge and a whimsical, inquiring mind and eye. Each volume costs £14.99 and I hope that no generation of new gardeners will grow up without reading such delights as her In Your Garden Again. These books inspired me to try to be a gardening columnist.
Lastly, a word on where to go and buy. Hatchards in London's Piccadilly has a department in the care of a most experienced team, Barry Delves and Jane McMorland Hunter. They have been on the job for 22 years and know the difference between passing fashion and true quality. Over in Paris, the same spirit is evident at the excellent Maison Rustique in the Sixième's smart Rue Jacob. I always learn from the knowledgeable displays of English and French books side-by-side, in which the English titles are not always the winners.
This year, these stores are joined by a new arrival, even richer and more lovingly stocked. On my recent visit to the New York Botanical Garden in The Bronx, I was delighted to find the smart new shop with its magnificent section for gardening books of all eras and areas. The word is already catching on among the city's garden-fanciers. It is the place to browse through a brilliant range and a visit always ends with yet another unexpected title leaving the shop in a smart new bag.
