Horticulturist and Gardeners’ World presenter Rachel de Thame suggests plants we can grow that are rich in nectar and pollen in every season, but also highlights the importance of including plants that provide shelter and places to lay eggs. “By adopting a holistic, year-round approach, one can really make a difference,” she says. “I believe having a beautiful garden can go hand in hand with creating a space that delivers equally for the pollinators and other beneficial insects so vital to a healthy and vibrant ecosystem.” Veronica Peerless

One Garden Against the World is part nature love story, part call to arms. It won’t fix climate change or the threat of biodiversity collapse on its own, but it will help us gardeners focus on the things we can do in our own backyards and allotments to give life forms the best chance of survival, and us a real sense of purpose in what we can do to help. The overriding take from this book is that the custodians of the UK’s 30 million gardens can make a difference. Cleve West

Following on from her two previous books
in this seasonal series – A Year Full of Flowers and A Year Full of Veg – Sarah Raven shows how to grow flowers all year round in pots. It’s packed full of practical and clever ideas on creating beautiful pots throughout the year, including how to combine flower colours using a ‘bride’ flower (the star of the show), a ‘bridesmaid’ (smaller and less conspicuous) and a ‘gatecrasher’ (the colour contrast that brings the whole thing to life). VP

Regular photographer for Gardens Illustrated Andrew Montgomery and garden editor Clare Foster explore the idea of the pastoral garden and what it means today. Featuring 20 notable gardens, including Knepp Walled Garden, The Barbican Gardens and Sarah Price’s own garden near Abergavenny in Wales, it looks at the themes of informality, sanctuary, landscape and habitat, and includes essays from Jinny Blom, Nigel Dunnett, Kim Wilkie and Tom Stuart-Smith. VP

A memoir about the horticulturist’s
life ‘from the word go, up to the
present day and a bit into the future’.
Via her childhood in Manchester,
training as an artist and a teacher, her
first experiments in plantswomanship
at Glebe Cottage, finding an unexpected career as a television presenter, and her recent experience of cancer, Carol tells the
story of the people, places and plants that have shaped her life. VP

In the summer of 2020, just as the first lockdown of the Covid pandemic started to lift, writer Olivia Laing and their husband, the poet Ian Patterson, moved into the former home in Suffolk of Mark Rumary, director of landscaping for many years at Notcutts. Mr Rumary’s cobwebbed apron still hung on the potting shed door, and the overgrown garden was packed with unusual delights. As Olivia set about restoring it, they found themselves considering the idea of paradise and gardens, both real and imagined. VP

A companion to Charles Dowding’s guide
to his signature growing method No Dig (DK, 2022). While there have been chapters on compost in most of the books the no-dig guru has written, he has never majored in the subject. “My aim with the book was to set composting out in clear terms – I don’t want to give readers a recipe, I want them to understand what they’re doing so that they can find a method that works for them,” he says. VP

This sumptuous book claims to be the
‘first ever large-format book to be published on the 18th-century landscape garden’ – but is there anything new to say about this quintessentially British creation, with rolling hills, forest clumps, mirror-flat lakes, grazing Longhorn cows and eye-catching monoliths and temples, so typically created by ‘Capability’ Brown and William Kent? There is. This book has reignited my interest in the gardens of the 18th century and it will do the same for you. Stephen Parker

This book – the first comprehensive study in English about the life and work of Mien Ruys – should be on every gardener’s book list, offering a thorough insight into the work of an extraordinary woman whose influence lives on through the work of many designers, including Piet Oudolf. Crawford writes: “Whether it’s a name we are aware of or not, many of us will have a little bit of Mien in our gardens, be it a railway sleeper, a diagonal line, a Phlomis russeliana or a water ball.” Annie Guilfoyle

The designer and plant curator shows how to combine a love of houseplants with an interest in interior design. Chongue’s easy-to-follow blueprints take a design-first approach, focusing on how plants relate to the surrounding architecture, materials and environment. The advice on analysing your space, suggested room layouts and style fundamentals, including colour, texture, shape and scale, is complemented by care advice for more than 80 favourite plants, and inspiring photography. Veronica Peerless

As an organic flower grower and florist, Nicholson has a reputation for discerning cuttings and arrangements. In her Wiltshire garden at Blackland House, she is indulging a passion for tulips with a thoughtful and methodical approach, all of which has been distilled in this, her debut book. Starting with their cultural and historical influence, Nicholson goes on to feature wild, species, heritage, English Florists and indeed those questionable annual tulips, giving us inspiration and tips for each type. Sorrel Everton

Over ten chapters, Mabey explores what it means to plant things, vegetations, ideas, people and places. These are wide-ranging debates that cover the gender-fluid nature of plants, decolonisation, migration, native/non-native, reparations for nature through the lens of the wood, the lawn, the pond and the flowerbed. There are times in these discussions where you feel he might not negotiate the hot coals of such topics. But don’t be fooled. By the end of each chapter he has succinctly, neatly wrapped up the deal. Alys Fowler
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Every now and again, maybe once in a decade, a genuinely revolutionary garden book comes along. This is one. It is not about individual shrubs (garden centre-type things, with big, plastic labels) but shrubs collectively.
A lot of us are commenting on how we
need to re-engage with woody plants, largely ignored by the ‘New Perennial’ movement. This is an important book that looks at shrub communities around the world, and how we might interpret them for garden and landscape use. Noel Kingsbury

Featuring ideas that are inventive and charming and don’t require oodles of blooms, garden designer Pritchard shares how he grows, harvests and artfully arranges flowers and foliage from the garden of his bohemian Somerset cottage all year round. Organised by season, the book shows you how to plan a garden so that every month of the year there’s something to bring indoors and display,
no matter the size of your plot or your
level of horticultural experience. Veronica Peerless

Sarah Raven is known for her love of flowers but is also a vegetable gardener and cook. She shares 30 year of learnings from growing ‘for abundance, flavour and ease’. The growing year is divided into two rather than the traditional four seasons, given how the climate is changing and many crops do well sown at different times. I also like the idea of ‘unbuyables’ – crops that are difficult to find in the shops.
Reviewer Aaron Bertelsen is a vegetable gardener and author.