The Edwardian Gardener’s Guide

Book excerpt: It is Edwardian England, and a delightful flower garden and fruitful allotment are matters of personal pride, boons for the family dinner table, and even 'important acts of local patriotism'. 'The Edwardian Gardener's Guide' selects nuggets of wisdom from the best-selling 'One & All' garden books, originally published in 1913. In these short booklets, the foremost agricultural and horticultural writers of the period revealed fashions in gardening styles, the best seasonal plants, how to enhance food production and how best to lay out adventurous rockeries, ferneries and grottoes. Packed with charming contemporary advertisements and colour illustrations, this handbook gives a glimpse of the pre-First World War 'golden era' of British gardening. With an introduction by garden historian Twigs Way.