16 Exceptional Gardeners and Seven Christmas Books

In Yorkshire we are lucky to have several gardens designed using the theme of a Himalayan Garden. The Hut near Ripon at Grewlthorpe is   ‘The Himalayan Garden’ with all the plants you would expect in such a setting including

New Trees: Recent Introductions to Cultivation by John Grimshaw, Ross Bayton and illustrated by Hazel Wilks. Amazon

Ornamental Japanese Maples are widely available for planting in your garden. The autumn colouring makes these trees spectacular when planted en mass in a woodland or Japanese garden setting.

Lily themed week shows some more waterlilies and tips for a happy pond.

After salad crop failures in Spain and shortages of courgettes, broccoli and other ‘long distance’ vegetables gardeners could to worse than focus on traditional and non-traditional root crops.

White is the second most useful colour in the garden after green. I am progressively increasing the number and variety of white and grey plants that I grow.

What can gardeners do in winter? The answer lies in the soil! but to old gardeners it is still ‘Beyond our Ken’. I often spent too long polishing my good intentions this includes planning to send my mower for servicing and sharpening’ a shame I do not plan to polish up my other important gardening implements.

Britain has some of the best gardens in the world. The choice of which to visit is far larger than this selective list but at least it gives you somewhere to start planning this years outings.

Where would we be if there weren’t already numerous robots used in the gardening industry. Do you imagine there are thousands of Dutch gardeners pricking out the seedlings of the soon to be gaudy annuals on supermarket displays or thousands of Chinese coolies picking individual seeds for our packeted seed industry (well may be in this case).

In the cold wet winter it is a good time to plan where to visit as the year improves. The South West is the obvious place to start your visiting tour of gardens containing exotic plants.

Oak trees conjure up images of Robin Hood and mystical Oak forests. Britain has made good use of Oak trees down the centuries. ‘From little acorns great Oak trees grow’

‘The Garden of Reading: An Anthology of Twentieth-century Short Fiction About Gardens and Gardeners’ edited by Michele Slung.