The 16 best Christmas books for gardeners RHS Botany for Gardeners edited by Geoff Hodge and Simon Maughan, Mitchell Beazley, £14.99 This book makes for an extremely attractive and alluring package. If you have ever felt the urge to know exactly what a spadix or a corymb is, or what shape a panduriform leaf is, then the answer will be in here. It's a beautifully illustrated and well-organised hardback, printed on buff-coloured paper to emphasise venerability and lasting value in spite of youth; it already looks and feels like a Victorian tome one might come across in the Lindley Library. As well as in-depth botanical summaries, there are sections on pruning and also biographical portraits of leading figures in the field (literally). I was particularly interested in the short penultimate chapter, 'Botany and the Senses', about the way plants can feel (thigmotropism) and even smell each other. It's a shame that the RHS and its publishers have sought to suppress the names of the consultant editors of this book for some reason, but I have included them here. (A panduriform leaf is fiddle-shaped, by the way. Of Rhubarb and Roses: The Telegraph Book of the Garden edited by Tim Richardson, £25 No modesty bypass, here -- I may have edited this collection culled from the writings of the 'home team', but none of my own work is in there. Articles and columns by many familiar names from these pages (Sarah Raven, Stephen Lacey, Mary Keen) can be enjoyed again, though an effort has been made to include material from every phase of this newspaper's life -- right back to the 1930s and Patrick Synge's despatches from a plant-hunting expedition in the Congo. Younger readers may not recall the daily columnists from the days before Gardening became its own section on a Saturday: Robert Pearson, the connoisseurial Denis Wood and of course the prolific and ever-inventive Fred Whitsey. Fine writers all. Germaine Greer provides a useful counterpoint with a paean to snails, and John Cushnie takes it upon himself to defend Leyland cypresses. There is 'a life in the day' of Beth Chatto -- who of course rises at 5am -- and for Roy Lancaster a poignant return to his childhood home in Bolton. I especially enjoyed finding the clipping about the grape-growing rivalry between a pair of dukes -- not something from the Edwardian period, as you might think, but from 1993. Daffodil by Noel Kingsbury, Timber Press, £17.99 Get ready for lots of yellow. Oodles of it. If you thought a 'daff' was just a daff, this lovely little book will make you think again. 'Narcissus' has the same root as 'narcotic', and the Furies of Greek mythology wore daffodils in their hair in order to stupefy their victims. Noel Kingsbury collates and appraises every possible facet and feature of the stupefying bulbous flower, from the multi-flowered jonquils to the truth about Wordsworth's paean, to the daffodil dynasties, the trend towards dwarfer varieties and the place in history and myth of this 'cult flower'. With some 70 species and 27,000 named cultivars of narcissus (which the author treats as synonymous with daffodil), the trick with a book of this sort is not to overload the reader with detail. Kingsbury rises to the challenge with a series of pithy, highly illustrated chapter-ettes which never wear the reader down. Jo Whitworth's photographs display remarkable variety. By the end, one might be ever so slightly 'daffodilled-out' -- but that is not an unpleasant sensation. You will know you are well and truly into 'into' daffodils if you don't even blink at a chapter entitled 'Cornwall: Centre of the Daffodil Universe'. RHS Chelsea Flower Show: A Centenary Celebration by Brent Elliott, Frances Lincoln, £25 Forget about the damp squib that was Chelsea's 2013 centenary show, this book is the real celebration. The RHS's head of libraries has produced a well-illustrated and definitive history which enthrals despite its lack of a critical edge . From the trials and tribulations of the show's early years, to the over-commercialised behemoth we see today, this book illustrates how some things have remained constant at the Chelsea show. Competitiveness, of course, wonderment, knick-knackery and also rain. The RHS's big show was formerly held at Chiswick and the 1829 edition was a washout -- 'ancle-deep [sic] in water . . . shrieks were dreadful, and the loss of shoes particularly annoying!' Whole summerhouses have blown down or been washed away on occasion and in the mid 20th century one waggish nurseryman suggested renaming the whole thing the 'Chelsea Shower Flow'. This book will remind seasoned Chelsea-goers that the extravaganza which unfolds before them each year, apparently so effortlessly, is in fact the result of thousands of hours of work and dedication from RHS staff, nurseries and garden-design teams. It's the nearest the garden world gets to show business. Virginia Woolf's Garden by Caroline Zoob, Jacqui Small, £30 Virginia Woolf produced much of her work from a writing lodge in a corner of the orchard at Monk's House in Sussex. She and her husband, Leonard, acquired the place as a weekend retreat in 1919 and while the garden they made there -- or rather, which Leonard made -- was not horticulturally noteworthy in itself, on the evidence of this book it was a source of succour if not delight to them both. The orchard and its apples were a particular boon, while Leonard's strong desire for a second greenhouse created a temporary rift with his wife. Virginia could not be described as a gardener but she did sometimes garden: 'weeding all day to finish the beds in a queer sort of enthusiasm which made me say this is happiness'. She also indulged in that grim talk which English gardeners seem to like so much -- 'The garden is full of zinnias. The zinnias are full of slugs. Caroline Zoob lived at Monk's House as a National Trust tenant for 10 years, and she tells the tale in detail and with sensitivity. There is a slight sense that the commonplace has been magnified if not fetishised, but that is the way with Bloomsbury. All the way through the reader knows it won't end well. One morning Virginia walked out of Monk's House, filled her pockets with stones and threw herself into the River Ouse. Her last diary entry reads: 'L. is doing the rhododendrons.' Gardening in Miniature by Janit Calvo, Timber Press, £12.99 Kitsch, dinky, cute: yes, yes and yes -- guilty as charged. But what's wrong with enjoying miniature gardens? Seattle-based author Janit Calvo describes herself as 'an artist, miniaturist, gardener and entrepreneur' and her book is ostensibly a how-to manual designed for anyone beset by an overwhelming urge to create tiny garden scenes complete with statuary, fretwork bridge, ironwork chairs and ornamental pools, all shaded by bonsai. I suspect, though, that most buyers of this book will be content simply to marvel at the doll's-house (or 'dollhouse') intricacy and attention to detail on show in the well-reproduced photographs. The book devolves into a series of step-by-steps that reveal how to make different projects. So if you have ever hankered after a miniature Lakeside Hideaway, or if you suspect that you probably would hanker after one if ever you were to see one, then this may be the book for you. The British Oak by Archie Miles, Constable, £35 A large and sturdy, cloth-covered hardback is a worthy receptacle for compendious information about our national tree. This volume comprises a gazetteer of the country's most famed specimens past and present, plus chapters on topics such as oak crafts and industries, oaks in deer parks and in mythology. This last is dealt with in short order, for the author's is a no-nonsense approach. We learn that the Fairlop Oak at Hainault even had its own annual fair, until careless cricketers picknicking nearby set fire to the tree in 1805 and it finally keeled over (some of the wood was made into the pulpit for St Pancras Church, which is pictured). We learn that the earliest oak ships discovered (in Yorkshire) have been carbon-dated to 2030-1780BC, and that in the 16th century, with the advent of cannon, iron masters were paradoxically felling large numbers of oaks for charcoal, compelling Henry VIII to institute a statute requiring 12 oaks to each acre. Constable is one of our last remaining independent publishers and this book was clearly a labour of love. Contemporary Designers' Own Gardens by Barbara Baker, Garden Art Press, £35 This is a book for someone with a serious interest in contemporary gardens. There could be a slightly prurient, 'through-the-keyhole' pleasure about the topic of gardens made by designers at their own homes, but the 20 selected for this book have made gardens which are showcases of their own talents. Tom Stuart-Smith and Jacques Wirtz have both marketed their work via their own gardens, while Fernando Caruncho's Madrid garden is a distillation of his ethic. But not every designer takes this tack. The author quotes the hilariously deadpan response of the Melbourne-based designer Vladimir Sitta to her enquiry about his own garden -- 'I never had a garden in my life [except] an odd tomato or chilli plant or parsley, images of which would destroy your book'. Notwithstanding this put-down of the very idea of a designer's garden, the text is celebratory rather than analytical -- 'Bunny has succeeeded triumphantly' -- while the picture quality can best be described as variable. But extensive quotation from the subjects makes this is a must-have for budding designers, professional and amateur. The New English Garden by Tim Richardson with photographs by Andrew Lawson, Frances Lincoln, £40 Telegraph columnist Tim Richardson has chosen to highlight 25 of the most interesting and arresting gardens that have been made or remade in the past decade. He covers the wide range of fashions flourishing in English garden design, with emphasis on naturalistic planting styles. The gardens, exquisitely photographed by Lawson, are fabulous. Wild Flowers Nature's Own to Garden Grown by Carol Klein, £20 Klein believes that in order to understand our garden plants, we need to look at their wild flower cousins. As gardeners, she thinks the more we know about our plants, the better we will treat them and the better they will repay us. She follows the family tree from wild spurge to Euphorbia characias; from buttercup to Ranunculus 'Flore Pleno"; from cow parsley to Ammi majus, with history facts and fables, and how to cultivate in between, reconnecting us with the plants at the centre of our universe. Grow your Own Firewood by Michael Littlewood (Ecodesignscape) One for the fire starter in your family, explaining how to create productive woodland by planting the best species, maintaining and harvesting your trees, in order to become self-sufficient in fuel. With ever-increasing energy costs it makes sense to consider growing your own. Littlewood also examines the best ways to bring existing woodland into productive management and explores the wildlife benefits. Elizabeth David on Vegetables compiled by Jill Norman, Quadrille, £20 For all those who grow health-giving vegetables, and try to do their best cooking them, this collection is a must for anyone wanting to give vegetables a starring role.It includes several short essays full of history and anecdote. Beautifully illustrated, Kristin Perers's photos bring Elizabeth David's recipes to life again. The Gardens of Venice and the Veneto by Jenny Condie, Frances Lincoln, £35 An art historian's tour of 20 of the most fabulous Venetian gardens - exploring the historical journey from fishermen's vegetable plots to theatrical pleasure gardens - that are testament to the region's gardeners, botanists and sculptors. Documented with atmospheric photos by Alex Ramsay to record their inherent fragility for future generations. Bob Flowerdew's Complete Fruit Book (Revised edition from Kyle Cathie) The book I turn to when I need to know about fruit. It's all there: information on selecting varieties, planting, growing, harvesting and eating. Bob knows it all. He's the authority on what's worth growing and how to get the best results. A present for those who love the sheer indulgence of growing their own fruit, the pleasures of foraging and the joys of dreaming about growing and eating their own berries, orchard fruits, citrus and nuts. In the same series: Jekka McVicar on herbs and Matthew Biggs on vegetables. The Manual of Seed Saving by Andrea Heistinger, Timber Press, £25 With the EU planning to regulate the propagation of all plant matter, it is important that amateur gardeners" needs are not forgotten in the face of lobbying by the agricultural seed industry. Being able to save seed is key to local food production. This book explains how to harvest, store and sow seeds, how to raise plants suited to your own growing conditions, and how to cultivate the best veg varieties in the most productive way. 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