It is Edwardian England, and a delightful flower garden and fruitful allotment are matters of personal pride, boons for the family dinner table, and even 'important acts of local patriotism'.'The Edwardian Gardener's Guide' selects nuggets of wisdom from the best-selling 'One & All' garden books, originally published in 1913. In these short booklets, the foremost agricultural and horticultural writers of the period revealed fashions in gardening styles, the best se...

From alpacas to zebus, crocodiles to wombats, journey through the individual histories of bizarre garden pets and their often bizarre owners. Who would dream of keeping a bear in the summerhouse, or a peccary in the park? Find out why the artist Rossetti favoured a wombat over a zebu, and if hares make good pets for depressed poets.Dr Twigs Way uncovers a secret world where crocodiles lurk in the fernery and flamingos stalk the shrubberies. From the Roman period to...

From the early misfortunes of Eve, condemning her descendants to a dubious reputation for fruit management, to the acclaimed successes of plant breeders such as the eccentric Ellen Willmott who combined bankruptcy with iris breeding, the fortunes of the female gardener have been as varied as their roles.Telling the tales of the sixteenth-century housewife, who neatly sidestepped accusations of herbal witchcraft while working her plot, and the unconventional Ladies ...

This War is a Food War…' In 1941 Lord Woolton, Minister for Food, was determined that the Garden Front would save England: 'Dig for Victory' was the slogan, digging for dinner the reality. With food imports dwindling the number of allotments grew, millions opted to 'Spend an Hour with a Hoe' instead of an hour in a queue, and the upper classes turned lawns, tennis courts and stately gardens over to agriculture. The national diet was transformed, with swedes grown in the place of oranges an...

Drawing its allure from the gold of the sun and the rule of emperors, the chrysanthemum winds its way through ancient Chinese culture into the gardens of French Impressionist painters and onto the pages of American novels. The flower signifies both life and death, as parts of Europe associate it with mourning while others celebrate it for its golden rays that light the autumnal gloom.In this fascinating book, Twigs Way follows the fortunes of the flower through philosophy, art, lite...

Contrived, colourful and cultured, the Tudor garden was a paradise on earth, given over to pleasurable pastimes and aesthetic effect. Artificiality was the fashion of the age, with clipped and twining plants vying for space with brightly painted woodwork and patterned beds.Renaissance discoveries reared their heads in royal gardens, where gilded and painted heraldic figures mingled with fantastical sundials and glittering fountains. Walls kept out the wild world beyond, while mounts afford...

England is a nation of gardeners and most of us garden in suburbia. A private paradise encompassed by privet, the suburban garden contains in its small compass the hopes and dreams of millions of gardeners past and present. From Victorian shrubberies to the 1980s ‘Good Life’, these small plots reveal the ever-changing aspirations and realities of the suburban dweller. Lauded by estate agents and satirised in literature, suburban plots are scattered with seating, sundials, goldfish ponds, a...

A sunlit lawn, blossom-laden trees, rustic chairs around tables laden with teapots and cakes, the tinkle of teacups and the murmur of conversation – what could be more British than a tea garden? As a nation obsessed with tea drinking and gardening, it is not surprising that the British combined the two. The popularity of tea gardens took hold in London in the eighteenth century, and grew during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, when suburban family parties joined cycling clubs and charaban...

Carnations permeate our culture from the wedding bed to the funeral wreath. Derided in Shakespeare as ‘nature’s bastards’, they challenged the tulip as the florist’s favourite flower, and went on to give their blessing to both a military coup and a Soho night club. Spanning the world from the gardens of the Ottoman Empire to the Mothers’ Day traditions of America via Chinese medicines and French empresses, Carnation is the first book to tell the cultural history of this hugely imp...

Allotments are a much-loved part of every British city, town and many villages. At the height of their popularity around the Second World War, allotments were increasingly neglected towards the end of the twentieth century, but are now in the throes of a full-scale revival. Many allotments now have long waiting lists, and allotment keeping has become a fashionable hobby. This book explores the fascinating story of the allotment, from its roots in the Diggers of the seventeenth century to t...