Christopher Stocks tells the fascinating tales of nineteen cultivated flowers and their journeys from distant corners of the world to British gardens, illustrated by the painter and printmaker Angie Lewin in this charming companion guide.
The Book of Garden Flowers builds on the success of Angie Lewin’s and Christopher Stocks’ previous collaborations; The Book of Wild Flowers (Thames & Hudson, 2024) and The Book of Pebbles (Thames & Hudson, 2020.) While The Book of Wild Flowers explored the natural history of Britain’s favourite wild species, The Book of Garden Flowers is more 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
• Henry VIII, who ate the first British-grown artichokes on the outskirts of Chelmsford
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.
