A YEAR FULL OF FLOWERS

BY SARAH RAVEN, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING, £25 (HB)

Gardening books, with their bright, colourful photographs, bring out the child in all of us. We go back to the stage when we wanted to look at pictures rather than read, and if a gardening book provides us with any inspiration for our own plots, it is usually via the images rather than the text.

Sarah Raven is associated with a gardening style that is characterised by jewel-like colour and rich texture, and it is impossible to turn the pages of her latest book without stopping to admire the portraits of her garden at Perch Hill (below). However, while Jonathan Buckley’s photographs are admittedly gorgeous, this is more than just a picture book. The aim is to encourage gardeners to expand their horticultural calendar. As Raven points out: “Abundance is pretty easy to achieve when you have tulips, roses and dahlias, but there are almost equally strong performers in February and November, just not so many of them. That makes them doubly worth planting.”

Raven’s writing style is straightforward and yet stimulating. She has that knack of making things sound simple and achievable, and she offers a wealth of knowledge and personal experience.

Too many of us on these rainy islands feel our gardens are no-go areas from October until the end of March. A Year Full Of Flowers will persuade you to at least push the boundaries back a couple of weeks at each end of the year and realise what you are missing.

Victoria Summerley, author, gardener