In parallel with the British enthusiasm for gardening, we have always had an appetite for gardening books. Every month fresh titles appear, beautifully photographed and packed with suggestions for making better gardens. Carry on through the bookshop to the second-hand section, however, and you’ll find books that are as useful now as when they were first published. Thus, it was a no brainer to fill Garden Lover's Library, Country Life's stand at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show, with hundreds of vintage gardening books.
The way a rambling rose should be pruned in 2026 is exactly the same as it was in 1926. The reliance on chemicals may have changed, some plant names have been reclassified and tastes in garden styles have certainly altered, but the fundamental practice of making and maintaining a garden remains, by and large, the same.
Without sumptuous photography, earlier books relied very much on their authors’ skills to explain, evoke and entertain, often providing a rich and entertaining read. In addition, each has been handled, used and appreciated by our predecessors, providing a link back in time to other gardeners and reminding us that our guardianship of our gardens is only temporary.
The famous Yates Garden Guide, first published in 1895, sold nearly seven million copies in Australia (second only to sales of the Bible).
This seed catalogue from 1894 is a perfect example of the visual appeal of vintage books about gardening.
The book I consult most for practical advice is the RHS Dictionary of Gardening, second edition, published in 1956 and originally owned, according to the elaborate bookplate, by Arthur J. Davis. Everything a gardener needs is contained within its four volumes. Mine was found 20 years ago and I regularly see copies when exploring bookshops. It is a compendium worth acquiring.
The techniques of gardening do not change, but the fashion in plants does. In her 1869 book The Fern Garden, Shirley Hibberd apologises to readers ‘perplexed by the abundance of books on the subject. Almost everybody has written a book on ferns’. Perhaps then, but not now. Second-hand books dedicated to families of plants no longer popular or fashionable are easy to find. Volumes abound on phlox, gladiolus, carnations and lilies. Considering growing violets? Then get hold of a copy of Howard H. Crane’s 1908 work The Book of the Pansy, Viola and Violet.
The names of most of these early 20th-century writers have not endured, but a few wrote books of such significance that they are unlikely to be surpassed. E. A. Bowles’s A Handbook of Crocus and Colchicum for Gardeners, published in 1924, is a magisterial study of the two plants, filled with anecdotes and accessible to the general reader.
Marion Cran, now long forgotten, was a prolific writer of gardening books at the beginning of the century and one of the few women to be made, in 1913, a Fellow of the RHS. Her books are easy to find, entertaining, informative and a joy to read. The Garden of Ignorance offers straightforward garden advice woven through a sanitised autobiography (she was married three times and had a child outside marriage). It details her journey of discovery of plants, horticultural techniques and aspects of design that every gardener takes at the start of their gardening life.
Sometimes, an author’s name that is not even vaguely familiar will emerge from the bookshelves. Little known in Britain, writer and designer Edna Walling, who died in 1973, was at one time the most revered gardener in Australia, celebrated both for her books and for the gardens she created, including one for Dame Nellie Melba. Gardens in Australia: Their Design and Care, published in 1943, weaves her interest in the Arts-and-Crafts Movement and her familiarity with Italian gardens into an account of the landscape, climate and flora of Australia.
Allen's book of berries, 1917, discusses the characteristics of the Chesapeake strawberry in much detail.
This photograph, taken in 1967, shows the writer Henry Gestefield holding his gardening book which contains over sixty years of gardening know-how.
Most of these second-hand books can be bought for no more than a few pounds but those by some well-known personalities, such as Gertrude Jekyll, are valued far higher. In 1912, Country Life published Jekyll and Sir Lawrence Weaver’s Gardens for Small Country Houses. Jekyll, probably the most famous garden designer at the time, was a regular contributor to the magazine and Weaver was its Architectural Editor. It is an imposing, large-format book that lands with a thud on the desk and demands to be read sat upright.
Although these old books are sources of information — and sometimes of new ideas — a considerable part of their interest and charm lies in the handwritten dedications, elegant bookplates, marginalia, the pieces of notepaper and even pressed flowers, hidden for decades, that fall from between the pages. Lists of plants made by previous owners, a certificate in recompense for a display of sweet peas, a pressed tulip, and an advertisement for Clay & Son, ‘Manure Manufacturers and Bone Crushers’ in east London, are only a few of the gems that my books have sheltered.
It is this link to the past that makes these books so appealing. A thread reaches back not only to the gardening joys and frustrations that we all face, but to the lives of the unknown fellow readers and gardeners that came before us, and to the times they gardened in.
Country Life’s favourite vintage gardening books
Country Life Magazine, Chelsea Flower Show Stand drawing 2026 by George Saumarez Smith.
Charles Quest-Ritson
My favourite gardening book? Goodness, that's difficult. I value most my run of the RHS's Journal — before it became The Garden and went down market. I have all of the editions since joining the RHS in 1972, and inherited 1950-1971 from my grandmother. Such wisdom… and such stylish writing!
Amy Merrick — stylist, writer and Country Life contributor
Onward and Upward in the Garden (1979) by Katharine White is a collection of essays for the New Yorker where she was the fiction editor but also moonlighted as a gardening columnist; her lively literary criticism of seed catalogs is especially genius. As other books go, it's the incredibly special illustrations by John Farleigh in Old Fashioned Flowers by Sacheverell Sitwell (1939) that make this book so cherished to me: auriculas, pinks, moss roses, each in perfect deco style. Elizabeth and her German Garden (1898) by Elizabeth von Arnim is also a favourite; her ascorbic wit and delight in flowers never fail to amuse.
Isabel Bannerman and Julian Bannerman — garden designers, writers and Country Life contributors
For Julian and I, books and gardening are indivisible, our house is swamped with books. Julian would choose all of Vita Sackville West's collected garden writing, especially In Your Garden which was published when he was born in 1951 and since then has become a loadstone for many gardeners. It is a beautiful object and seminal writing. Among our most precious books are limited editions of Sackville West's poems 'The Land' and 'The Garden', but sometimes I just need to get my hands on a copy of Margery Fish, say. I would choose Roy Genders’ gardening books — practical and gentle books written on every subject with the kind of knowledge which was possible in a world without the distractions and delights of modern living. When I need to re-ignite my love of landscape and gardens though I often turn to Russian literature; to Turgenev, Pasternak and Nabokov for some unparalleled observation and yearning. To read a handsome hard back before getting up in the morning is a pleasure beyond measure.
Mary Keen — garden designer, writer and Country Life contributor
Most gardening books fall into predictable catégories. Boastful, Bossy, Beguiling and Beautiful are all useful, but rarely funny. So my choice, in the unique ‘Bewildered’ category, is Karel Capek’s The Gardener's Year. His puzzled record of failures is written in the most delightful way as he wrestles with the coils of a hose, steps on the shoots of emerging rarities, bewails the state of his soil, bickers about identifying plants, agonises over the weather and worries whenever he leaves the garden with which he is totally obsessed. Written in 1929, it remains the most truthful and funny account of what it is to be a gardener.
Tilly Ware — gardener, writer and Country Life contributor
Plant Names Simplified (1931), the exact size to fit a back pocket, comes with me everywhere. The pronunciation, history and etymology make it indispensable at nurseries or garden visits, a kick-start to intimacy with a plant. Extra joy comes from accidental discoveries on either side of the name you’re looking up, a nudging reminder of all sorts of things you’d forgotten or ignored, a serendipity that the internet never provides. This is the book I give anyone starting to garden: it demystifies the vast botanical world, building confidence and understanding of different habits and needs. There’s so much to be discovered in a name.
The Country Life 'Garden Lover’s Library', designed by George Saumarez-Smith of ADAM Architecture features a myriad of vintage gardening books. It is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show from May 18–23. To celebrate, you can purchase a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers are available, too. If you’re attending the Show, you can subscribe in person and receive a complimentary bottle of The Grange sparkling wine. Limited to the first 200 UK-based subscribers. Until May 31, 2026
The introduction to this feature first appeared in the September 24, 2025, issue of Country Life and has since been cut down and edited. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.