Too cold to garden? Stay inside with a book instead

In a book that will particularly appeal to new gardeners, she highlights how one of the joys of growing your own is making your own and that can include everything from bread and butter pickles to mint jelly to candied walnuts. This vibrant production with great illustrations by Ashlea O’Neill includes recipes for an array of preserves, as well as guides to growing the central ingredients. One of the themes is how gardening and preserving can help you reduce food waste and plastic use, which, as Turner puts it, means addressing contemporary concerns “by an old-fashioned practice”.

A Garden’s Purpose, Felix de Rosen (Princeton Architectural Press)

It doesn’t matter that we live on the other side of the world from most of the gardens discussed in this book, because the author doesn’t dwell on specific plants and climates so much as approaches.

With a leaning towards the experimental and resourceful, de Rosen discusses affordable ideas – including fencing, paving and paths – to suit all sorts of aesthetics. Even if a garden filled with blue tubes, crates, cans and other discards isn’t your thing, you are sure to find something that appeals from the array of urban courtyards, balconies, farms, parks, nature strips and abandoned car parks everywhere from downtown Los Angeles to outer-suburban Paris that are discussed.

A central theme is gardening in harmony with nature and, while this Californian designer is sceptical about following convention, he is a stickler for keeping close tabs. “There is no point in intervening in a garden that we are not familiar with . . . we have to take the time to actually observe.”

Wildscape, Nancy Lawson (Princeton Architectural Press)

Squarely aimed at those who don’t look askance at decaying plants, fallen leaves and wild tangles, this book considers how our plots look, smell, sound, feel and taste to all the birds, insects and other creatures that pass through.

Lawson discusses scientific research from around the world, as well as goings-on in her own American garden and, while the general concepts will be familiar to many readers, peppers her text with many interesting details. Who knew, for instance that plants munched by goats can grow back thicker and faster than those clipped by pruning shears, thanks to the stimulatory effects of animal saliva?

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