This wonderfully diverse collection of facts, figures and foliage is a celebration of plants, gardens and gardening. All things horticultural can be found here, from the phantasmagorical to the practical and everything in between. Delve into the cut-throat world of the plant hunters. Meet the first garden gnomes. Find a recipe to create a cocktail flower garden. See the world through the eyes of a bee. Here is a book to inspire gardeners and dig down into all aspects of a horticultural world where plants can heal and hurt, attack and retreat, survive and even come back from the dead. Beautifully illustrated with botanical diagrams and graphics, this is a miscellany with a green-fingered purpose to inform and delight all gardeners and plant lovers. It is densely packed and organized randomly, a “pick and mix” of horticultural knowledge that ranges from local to global with pages and spreads that include maps, historical biography, scientific explorations, plant profiles, fun and unbelievable facts, recipes and tips.
It’s a chocolate box formula (courtesy of the cacao plant of course) that reveals unique connections between people and plants, gardens and history, literature and botany, wildlife and science, serendipity, and nature. Plantology in all its green glory is here to explore.

Ann Treneman is both a much loved journalist and an award winning garden designer. She writes the Notebook column for The Times and was previously the paper’s chief theatre critic and their award-winning parliamentary sketch writer and feature writer. Ann’s “other life” is as garden designer, and she won the RHS People’s Choice award for her RHS silver-gilt-medal Wild Kitchen Garden at Chelsea Flower show 2022 (Container Category). She has a masters degree in Landscape Architecture and projects include a sensory and dementia friendly garden in London. Having grown up in Oregon in the US, she now lives and gardens in Bakewell, the UK.