Gardening Books

Surprised no-one has mentioned this before!! (Or is it somewhere I haven't thought of looking?)
Books about gardening, books about gardens, different types of gardens...how many have YOU got??!! (And do you have room for them all??!)

One thing that struck me today...I've just read THE STORY OF GARDENING by Martin Hoyles, it's sort of from a Socialist perspective - about who actually DID the work when Lord So-and-So "built" such and such a stately home, for instance.
Then I googled to see if there were any other books on this topic, and it kept coming up with books about National Socialism and the Blut-und-Boden ideology...

So the obvious conclusion to draw from this is...I'll have to write one myself! (Hoyles' book dates from the 1990s - there have been developments since then!)

 

I have a lot more gardening books than I'll ever be likely to have time to read :rolleyes: I refer to a lot of them from time to time - and they take up the whole of the "wall" or balustrade of the minstrels' gallery which is my office - LOTS of books! :D But not many from a socialist perspective.....

 

There's always room for another gardening book Leonora the main problem being the age-old riposte 'it's all been done before'. I must admit that after Christopher Lloyd I'm not sure what there is to write about.
My view is that there is little written about the difficulties presented by the difference between TV gardeners and reality - where do they get their soil from and who pays for it/etc.. Who monitors the gardens/greenhouses when the presenters are elsewhere encouraging others.......
back o the weeding and clearing up.............

 

I made a rule, sometime ago, to only buy specialist books - ie devoted to a particular aspect of gardening. If you buy lots of general gardening books, they just repeat themselves, whilst specialist books tend not to overlap much. But like Chobart (and Waco as well), I am a fan of Christopher Lloyd.

 

We have about 16 metres of bookshelf of gardening books. Like Peter I tend to buy specialist ones, usuallu single genus monographs these days. Timber Press are producing a large number these days.
I also pick up older books (pre 1950's) when I see them at prices I can afford. Trouble is these days most of the books I have not got which I would like to have are well beyond my pocket.
I have read all of mine by the way.
One thing which does amuse me is the way modern writers merely paraphrase what was written before, without actually (probably) doing it for themselves. If they did all the things they write about they would hardly have time to write. Even Christopher Lloyd did not do all the gardening himself, he did have a staff who carried out his wishes.

 

There have been various threads recommending books, see here:
http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=search_tng;d=results;record=2454233-113535-ND66;result_start=60
I agree that general books become less useful as your library grows; I buy only specialist books now and check them out at the library first if possible.
Amazon have a good second-hand section for books.
Also this thread:
http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001204#000000
From which I see Palustris has added an extra metre to his collection!
Anyone read the new book on Heucheras?

 

What I meant was..the CLASS aspects of gardening have not really been discussed in any detail, except in this book by Hoyles, and a book on Allotments by Colin Crouch and (????) Ward ...and it's really a fascinating topic.

 

Ah well, yes, this was my point, sort of...who does the actual WORK??!!!
Hoyles has a chapter on GARDENING AND WOMEN - apparently Vita Sackville-West and Getrude Jekyll DID do some of the actual digging and planting themselves, but mainly they DESIGNED gardens and employed men to do the actual work. And how much credit do you think their gardeners got???

 

Well we have removed some of the non gardening books from one of the shelves and replaced them with the gardening books which were in store. Yes I have the new book on Heucheras, very interesting.

 

I only just saw an ad. for it in Amateur Gardener! Must investigate further, thanks.

 

Picked up 3 books in reasonable condition at a car boot on saturday:

A year in your garden with Percy Thrower, and 2 Dr Hessayon "expert" series books : Bio friendly gardening and Vegetable growing.

And change from a quid too !!!

 

I've loads of gardening books collected over the years. That many I could start a library! Quite a few in a series called 'Grow your own'. Really good reading.

 

I haven't many - yet! General ones from alan titchmarsh and the HDRA as was, one on ponds, Caroline Foley on allotments (my veg growing bible!) and the RHS plants for places book. All of these come out regularly - but I learnt an awful lot from Chas Griffin's autobiographies "Scenes from a Smallholding" and "More scenes from a smallholding", and I'd thoroughly recommend these. Leonora's book sounds really interesting, think I should try to get hold of more gardening histories.

 

Good sources for books I find are carboots and second hand shops. Also charity shops. I used to collect books in general. Went through a phase of sci fi then war books and gardening. Wouldn't like to hazard a guess at how many!
How's the PhD work Claire?

 

This is a good book. Mark Wallington has a dream. He is going to change the face of British comedy. Unfortunately for the residents of north London, he's going to finance this dream by becoming a gardener.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Day-Job-Adventures-Jobbing-Gardener/dp/0099472678/ref=sr_1_2/026-7569749-5922849?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179144563&sr=1-2