It is a rare privilege for a gardening writer to have a new edition of a book published posthumously. Such luminaries include Gertrude Jekyll and Russell Page… and now Roger Phillips. His bestseller, Trees, has just had a revised edition released by Macmillan, which published the ground-breaking original in 1978.
The book covers trees of North America, Europe, the UK and Ireland and has been expanded to cover 650 species from the original 500. As well as its comprehensiveness, it has all the other instantly recognisable hallmarks of Phillips’s particular style that made this — and all the books he produced over a lifetime of writing about plants — so compelling. He had a way of combining simplicity of description with botanical authenticity, so a book such as Trees becomes much more than an illustrated list.
Because he was as good a photographer as he was a writer, the images — painstakingly detailed — contribute as much as the text, in particular in the first section, the Leaf Key Index, which Phillips pioneered. The sheer quantity of close detail is revealing of both the individual characteristics of different trees and the subtle variances within a family or genus.
Trees, together with Phillips’s other books, forms a lasting legacy to this most engaging, erudite gardener and botanist who died in 2021. There is another living legacy to his talents, however, in the garden of Eccleston Square, London, which was his home for more than 40 years and on which I am also fortunate enough to live. During his lifetime, he transformed the 3½ acres from a dull city space into a garden teeming with interest. Taking advantage of the central London microclimate and the canopy of magnificent London planes, Platanus x hispanica, he introduced a kaleidoscope of often exotic or rare plants, of all shapes and sizes, from trees to small bulbs and perennials.
Roger Phillips transformed the 3½ acres of Eccleston Square 'from a dull city space into a garden teeming with interest'.
There are a number of extensive collections, from ceanothus to camellias (at least one in flower every month of the year) and tree peonies (many of which produce flowers the size of dinner plates). There is also a good selection of the trees featured in Phillips’s book, but, in the Eccleston Square setting, many have become most distinctive as hosts for a collection of climbing and rambling roses he planted, many of which have achieved prodigious size.
Some are old favourites, such as an enormous plant of Rosa ‘The Garland’, which has formed a great canopy over a sturdy ironwood, Parrotia persica. Others are less well known, such as ‘Cooper’s Burmese’ (or R. cooperi), which literally smothers a red maple, Acer rubrum, with its large pure-white single flowers. Arguably the real treasures are the tea and China roses, not least because they flower for months on end. The selection includes R. ‘Alister Stella Gray’ and a rose I had never heard of before, which is also my favourite because of its back story.
Rosa ‘Général Schablikine’ was bred in 1878 by the famous French rose breeder Gilbert Nabonnand. He named it after a Russian general and hero of the Crimean War who became a neighbour when he retired to Provence. One expert wrote of this rose: ‘If a law was passed that one man should cultivate but one variety of rose, I should without hesitation choose ‘Général Schablikine’.’ He goes on to say that it flowers ‘continuously from October to summer’, to which I can attest, as I photographed it flowering in Eccleston Square on Christmas Day 2024.
As is his book Trees, the Eccleston Square garden is testament to Phillips’s encyclopaedic knowledge of plants built up over a lifetime of exploring and writing: he could have just as easily put together a companion volume on trees originating from other parts of the world, from China to Australasia (a particular favourite) and South America. I’ll finish with a tree from the latter continent that is — probably — the rarest in the Eccleston Square garden. Lots of people in the UK grow Crinodendron hookerianum, with its distinctive bright red lantern flowers, but very few people grow its equally distinguished relative, C. patagua, with evergreen foliage that is scattered in midsummer with small, gorgeously delicate creamy-white lily-like flowers. Its healthy state in the heart of London is a worthy tribute to Phillips’s inspiring career as gardener and author.
George Plumptre is chief executive of the National Garden Scheme, for which the Eccleston Square garden opens annually in May (www.ngs.org.uk). 'Trees' is out now (Macmillan, £35)
This feature originally appeared in the July 23, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe
-
The Irish wolfhound: Meet the loyal and strong gentle giant that won the hearts of John F. Kennedy and the British ArmyFrom its roots in ancient Ireland to its present-day role as the Irish Guards' official mascot, the Irish Wolfhound shows that loyalty, strength, and grace are qualities worth celebrating.
-
One of 'the most magnificent and perfectly preserved of Britain’s great Edwardian country houses', as built for the heir to Thomas Cook's vast fortuneJohn Goodall looks at the creation of Sennowe Park in Norfolk — home of Charles and Virginia Temple-Richards — and charts its transformation at the hands of a local architect from a Georgian lodge to a luxurious Edwardian home.
-
'Other people would have given up and turfed half of it over': The couple who turned 'the ugliest house with the nicest view' into a Somerset treasureWith many viewpoints and changes of level, Grove Ley in Somerton, Somerset — home of Dr and Mrs Michael Horder — was not an easy site on which to make a garden. But key to its success, writes Caroline Donald, has been enlarging the pond and creating long beds full of robust perennials and grasses. Photographs by Britt Willoughby Dyer.
-
Isabel Bannerman: Gardens fade in the heat of high-summer, but it's still possible to plant pockets of joy in shaded spacesThis is traditionally the time of powdery daisies caked in sun, but our writer craves a 'spritz' more likely found among shade-loving plants in damp-holding places.
-
'I blitzed it. Nothing survived. If you have one bit of surviving bindweed, you will have it forever’: A peek in to the ruthless world of the gravel gardenSince they appeared in the 1990s, gravel gardens have grown in popularity, especially in recent years. What are the keys for success? Non Morris asks some of Britain's top experts in the field, from the brutal work needed to get started through to the plants that only work 'if you get rid of soil entirely'.
-
Why a love of gardening will get us all in the endWhen it comes to gardening, resistance is futile — especially if you're British — so it's best to give into it and get on with it.
-
A lush, 'tropical' garden in Devon where bananas and ginger grow happily alongside the staples of an English country gardenSteep inclines and rocky outcrops are nothing to the owners of this coastal garden, which is filled with plants-many from the southern hemisphere-that thrive in such conditions, finds Caroline Donald.
-
25 design books that will transform your ideas, as recommended by Britain's leading interior and garden designersGiles Kime spoke to some of the best designers and gardeners to get their recommendations on the books that constantly prove a source of inspiration in their work.
-
Five British gardens have a starring role on the New York Times's list of 25 must-see gardens — here are the ones they forgotMultiple British gardens have topped a New York Times list.
-
Don't judge a plant by its smell: Why 'the little stinkers of the natural world' are just doing their jobReminiscent of love and with an unmistakable odour of death, the little stinkers of the natural world might incite repulsion, but they are only doing their job, pleads Ian Morton
