This book is a celebration of the characters who have practised, enriched and furthered the tradition of gardening in every corner of Britain, both garden designers and explorers, practitioners and writers. Not only does it include portraits of the people themselves but also their self portraits, as expressed in the gardens they have produced, which encompass the whole spectrum from formality to wilderness and from allotment to country house. It is a sequence of images that reveals a history of gardens through the eyes of those who have shaped them and in addition, explores the art of gardening today, an activity deep at the cultural heart of the nation. Following an Introduction, the book is divided into five sections, a visual and literary exploration of the British garden as seen from five distinct points of view. The Garden Proposed examines the attitudes and inspirations that inform contemporary garden design, from the visionary landscape garden created by architect Charles Jencks to new developments in British land art and the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay and Andy Goldsworthy. The Garden Described features leading garden historians and writers, accompanied by a compilation of key examples of the garden writing tradition in Britain. The Garden Planted recognises that the way plants are used, grouped and grown is both an art and a science, inexorably determining the way a garden looks and develops. Images explore the different worlds of plant husbandry, from nurserymen to specialist rose growers, the Chelsea Flower Show expert and the gifted amateur. The Garden Preserved reveals a particularly British aspect of gardens - the living heritage of great gardens in all their diversity. Portraits of gardens and their owners, head gardeners and garden pioneers, chart both the grandest restorations and the most dramatic transformations. The concluding chapter of the book, The Garden Explored, deals with the extraordinary tradition and continuing British excellence of pla