A Year at Kew - Rupert Smith
Hardcover 192 pages (September 2, 2004)

Kew Garden has recently been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, ranking it alongside Stonehenge, the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal. It receives over a million visitors a year and has just been voted the UK’s favourite garden.

Accompanying a new BBC2 series, A Year at Kew is a month-by-month journey through the world’s greatest botanical garden, following the work of Kew’s committed team of experts in the gardens and glass houses, laboratories and libraries that give Kew its reputation as a centre of scientific excellence. Each monthly chapter looks at what’s currently in flower at Kew, what’s being planted or removed, names a plant of the month and takes an in-depth look at one of the special activities going on – everything from research field trips to garden parties. Day-in-the-life diaries of some of the stars from the television series capture the magic of the garden, and the year is punctuated with a series of hugely popular seasonal festivals and exhibitions.

Beautifully illustrated and with extensive behind-the-scenes access, the book captures the passion and commitment that goes into the garden and offers a unique look at the private life of Kew Garden throughout a busy and significant year in its history. It also includes a foreword by Alan Titchmarsh.

The Jewel Garden - Monty Don, Sarah Don

THE JEWEL GARDEN is the story of the garden that over the past decade has bloomed from the muddy fields around the Don's Tudor farmhouse, a perfect metaphor for the Monty and Sarah's own rise from the ashes of spectacular commercial failure.

At the same time THE JEWEL GARDEN is the story of a creative partnership that has weathered the greatest storm, and a testament to the healing powers of the soil. In his weekly column for the Observer, Monty Don has in the past been candid about the garden's role in helping him to pull back from the abyss of depression; THE JEWEL GARDEN will elaborate on this further. Written in an optimistic, autobiographical vein, Monty and Sarah's story is truly an exploration of what it means to be a gardener.

Incidentally, the book covers all the Dons' garden, but the 'Jewel Garden' itself is a part of it that is planted with particularly vibrant, vivid, jewel-like plants. This area more than any other draws on the years they spent in the fashion business. With specially commissioned photography by the renowned garden photographer Nicola Browne, this book will be a jewel-like object in its own right.

The Dry Garden , Beth Chatto
Paperback - 248 pages Rev. Ed (19 June, 1998)

As our climate is changing to result in increasingly hot summers and dry winters, gardeners need guidance on plants that will thrive in dry conditions. This book provides readers with information on types of soil and the various principles of the design and management of dry gardens, including a detailed list of plants, with notes on their characteristics and advice on how to grow them.

Meetings with Remarkable Trees, Thomas Pakenham  Paperback - 192 pages new edition (13 October, 1997)

Not really a gardening book at all, but a book of cathedrals for those of us who admire the everyday trees that we see around us. Inspirational as to what mother nature can achieve when given time, space and her own wonderful creations to work on. Full of amazing photographs of these living historical monuments. These portraits of Britain's trees are arranged according to their characteristics, rather than conventional botany, under such headings as "Natives", "Travellers", "Shrines", "Fantasies" and "Survivors".

Designing with Plants, Piet Oudolf, Noel Kingsbury

When your new gardening bible comes with chapters entitled Birth, Life, and Death, you know you're in trouble. But be brave, turn to those chapters, and in some very practical little essays on planting, you'll uncover the very down-to- earth principle from which Piet Oudolf's radical reinvention of gardening is based: plants die.

The Garden at Highgrove
Hardcover - 176 pages (12 October, 2000)

A book about the garden that Prince Charles has developed at Highgrove (not entirely on his own though as I understand it!). It is a lovely book to look through, full of photographs that don't just decorate and fill space, but give you ideas that you could adapt for your own (presumably more humble) patch. A beautiful book to own and look at and to get ideas from.  

"Homefront" in the Garden, Diarmuid Gavin
Hardcover - 168 pages  (4 January, 2001)

A book for the "modern" gardener, i.e. those who see the garden as an extended part of the house where there happen to be some plants living. Diarmuid certainly has lots of impressive ideas and the more adventurous will love them. If the idea of a giant stainless steel shark fin in the middle of a long-thin garden excites you, then buy this book, if it doesn't - don't. Having seen the television programme I  find it difficult not to read it in an accent, "Then you put the sment into the sment mixer". Not one for the traditionalist, but if you want something out of the ordinary, but still achievable on normal (ish - i.e. not film star) amounts of cash, there's plenty here for you.