Thoughtful Gardening Great Plants, Great Gardens, Great Gardeners

About this book

This is Robin Lane Fox's first gardening book in twenty-five years, and marks the fortieth year of his weekly columns on gardening for the "Financial Times". It is based on his own selection from these widely admired pieces, which he has rewritten and amplified with new chapters to take readers on a highly enjoyable journey through each season of the gardening year. It draws on his lifetime of practical gardening, including his years as Garden Master of New College, Oxford, and contains many memories of fellow gardeners, from Christopher Lloyd to Nancy Lancaster.

The book is essential reading for anyone setting out on a new garden or taking stock of one. It takes a critical look at fashions of the moment and is full of advice, ranging from problems with badgers to how to take root-cuttings or choose flowering trees, as well as examples of gardens at home and abroad which Robin Lane Fox has visited over many years. "Thoughtful Gardening" combines a principled view of the craft of gardening with dozens of new ideas for planting and visiting, and touching reminders of the power of literature and art to deepen what we see and realize in gardens of our own.

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Biography

Robin Lane Fox's weekly gardening column in the Financial Times began in 1970 and is the longest running in print today. He has published two bestselling books on the subject, Better Gardening (Penguin, 1982) and Variations on A Garden (revised ed.,1986). He began his career in the great Botanical Garden in Munich and since 1979 has been Garden Master of the gardens at New College, Oxford where he is also Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History. He is the prize-winning author of many books on classical history, including most recently: Travelling Heroes: Greek and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer (Allen Lane, 2009).