The Book of Garden Flowers

Revealing new stories behind some of our most familiar and unusual garden plants, this beautiful book explores the horticultural history and floral folklore of some of the nation’s favourite flowers. Tips for care and cultivation also feature, making it an ideal gift for gardeners and flowers lovers.

The Book of Garden Flowers is a social history, bringing into focus some of the remarkable people who introduced exotic plants to our gardens from around the globe, including:

Margery Fish, secretary to six successive editors at the Daily Mail, who rescued many cottage garden flowers from obscurity; Ellen Willmot, who employed over 100 staff in her garden and burned through a huge fortune thanks to her passion for plants, dying penniless and alone; Charles Dickens, who became obsessed with a particular pelargonium; John Gerrard, the famous 17th-century herbalist, who planted the first nasturtiums in the UK at his City of London garden; and Henry VIII, who ate the first British-grown artichokes on the outskirts of Chelmsford.

Christopher Stocks tells the fascinating tales of nineteen cultivated flowers and their journeys from distant corners of the world to British gardens, beautifully llustrated by the painter and printmaker Angie Lewin.