Want to create a dramatic garden that leaves a lasting impression? This stunning guide offers a new approach to planning and planting, encouraging you to throw caution to the wind and orchestrate colours, textures, scale and scent to spectacular effect from spring until autumn. The key is colour: intense, strong and voluptuous such as deep crimsons combined with acid green and incandescent orange. Integral to the vision is a feeling for dramatic scale: plants with huge presence, architectural foliage, strong, sculptural shapes and to complete the effect, flowers with silken and velvety textures and flooding the garden with scent. There are schemes for sunny, open beds and borders for shady areas, for damp soils and to clothe walls and fences - many of which include lots of quick-growing annuals and take only a season to achieve. This is the go-to guide for achieving a spectacular and striking garden.

“For those of you—and your numbers are growing—gardening in drought-stricken parts of the country, The Bold Dry Garden will quench your thirst for inspiration.” —New York Times Book Review Ruth Bancroft is a dry gardening pioneer. Her lifelong love of plants led to the creation of one of the most acclaimed public gardens, The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, California. The Bold Dry Garden offers unparalleled access to the garden and the extraordinary woman responsible for it. In its stunningly photographed pages, you’ll discover the history of the garden and the design principles and plant palette that make it unique. Packed with growing and maintenance tips, profiles of signature plants for a dry garden, and innovative design techniques, The Bold Dry Garden has everything you need to create a garden that is lush, waterwise, and welcoming.

Inspiration, planting ideas and expert advice for a beautiful garden all-year round Colour and scent are the hallmarks of Sarah Raven's style – and they are simple luxuries that everyone can bring into their garden. A Year Full of Flowers reveals the hundreds of hardworking varieties that make the garden sing each month, together with the practical tasks that ensure everything is planted, staked and pruned at just the right time. Tracing the year from January to December at her home, Perch Hill, Sarah offers a complete and transporting account of a garden crafted over decades. Sharing the lessons learned from years of plant trials, she explains the methods that have worked for her, and shows you how to achieve a space that's full of life and colour. Discover long-lasting, divinely scented tulips, roses that keep flowering through winter, the most magnificent dahlias and show-stopping alliums, as well as how to grow sweet peas up a teepee, take cuttings from chrysanthemums and stop mildew in its tracks. This is passionate, life-enriching gardening; it's also simple, adaptable and can work for you. Sarah has made the garden central to her life – this book shows you how you can too.

"From back-of-an-envelope list to flower-filled paradise - Brilliant and Wild: A Garden from Scratch in a Year gives even the most inexperienced gardener the chance to create a beautiful and wildlife-friendly outdoor space - from nothing - in just twelve months. This highly practical book shows how satisfying and surprisingly simple growing a garden from scratch can be, by: Providing clear step-by-step instructions for making a low-maintenance garden that will flourish within months and be fully established within a year. Focusing on perennial plants that are easy to grow, loved by wildlife and look more beautiful every year. Illustrating the text with photographs showing the author making her new perennial garden in just one year"--Publisher's description

In a time of climate change and mass extinction, how we garden matters more than ever: “An outstanding and deeply passionate book.” —Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals Plenty of books tell home gardeners and professional landscape designers how to garden sustainably, what plants to use, and what resources to explore. Yet few examine why our urban wildlife gardens matter so much—not just for ourselves, but for the larger human and animal communities. Our landscapes push aside wildlife and in turn diminish our genetically programmed love for wildness. How can we get ourselves back into balance through gardens, to speak life's language and learn from other species? Benjamin Vogt addresses why we need a new garden ethic, and why we urgently need wildness in our daily lives—lives sequestered in buildings surrounded by monocultures of lawn and concrete that significantly harm our physical and mental health. He examines the psychological issues around climate change and mass extinction as a way to understand how we are short-circuiting our response to global crises, especially by not growing native plants in our gardens. Simply put, environmentalism is not political; it's social justice for all species marginalized today and for those facing extinction tomorrow. By thinking deeply and honestly about our built landscapes, we can create a compassionate activism that connects us more profoundly to nature and to one another.

A stunning gardening book full of inspiration, tips and advice

If you're fed up with buying flowers to display and arrange at home, then look now further than this easy-to-follow, practical guide to growing your own cut flowers from gardening expert Sarah Raven (Gardener's World, The Daily Telegraph). With over 250 specially commissioned photos, top tips and step-by-step instructions, this book is the first step to having a house full of sophisticated and stylish home-grown arrangements! 'She makes it so simple. Once Sarah has had her way with you, you will never need to buy another bunch of out-of-season Kenyan roses again.' -- The Guardian 'Absolutely fantastic!' -- ***** Reader review 'A must for all flower lovers' -- ***** Reader review 'Inspirational' -- ***** Reader review 'Sarah Raven is the best!' -- ***** Reader review 'Beautifully illustrated and full of imaginative ideas' -- ***** Reader review ******************************************************************************************************* Demystifying the world of floristry, Grow Your Own Cut Flowers by Sarah Raven (Gardener's World, The Daily Telegraph) is perfect for beginner gardeners, flower arrangers wanting to grow their own flowers and experienced gardeners wanting ideas to fill a house with their harvest. With insider tips on sowing seed, conditioning flowers and putting together stylish arrangements for any occasion, step-by-step instructions, flower directories and over 250 specially commissioned photographs, this is an invaluable, practical and accessible guide to bringing a little bit of the outside into your house in a rewarding, stylish and sustainable way.

The perfect gift—a beautiful reference book celebrating British wild flowers, by the award-winning garden writer Sarah Raven.

The star of "The Big Bang Theory" and author of the #1 bestseller "Girling Up" puts her Ph.D. to work to talk to teen boys about the science and pressures of growing up male in today's world.

Offers planting plans and plant descriptions to maximize the effects of color in a perennial garden