Hillier Garden Planning: The Essential Guide to Garden Planning, Planting and Maintenance from the Internationally Renowned Hillier Nurseries

Beginning by setting out alternatives and explaining how to start on the design, this is a guide to the various aspects of designing a garden. It is a revised edition of "The Hillier Book of Garden Planning and Planting", which was published in 1988. Practical advice on design and techniques, accompanied by designer's diagrams, make up the main part of the book. There are also sections on soil, climate and botany, choosing the best plants for different situations, and management of the new garden, and the final chapter features a selection of plants and genera suitable for building into collections. Most of the plants recommended throughout the book were given an Award of Garden Merit 1993 by the Royal Horticultural Society.

The focus of this book, which was first published in Britain, is on planning a garden to suit the gardener's individual needs, considering the amount of time available and the cost of making and maintaining the garden. Planning is the key word; the authors stress the fact that good planning equals success. Decide what you want, they urge; then they offer a chapter on ground work, explaining the types of soil and mulches and the art of weed control. There are chapters on garden design; on planting and maintaining a garden; and on choosing plants for screening, for difficult banks, for such special features as courtyards, terraces and patios, sunny and shady dry areas, and rock and water gardens. Amply illustrated with photographs and diagrams. George Cohen