The Complete Gardener

What it actually says

Specifics from inside the book — so you can judge whether it's telling you anything you don't already know.

• The revised edition marks a genuine reversal. Reviewers note he has moved from cultivating soil to embracing no-dig and gentler intervention. His stated principle: look after the soil and you invariably look after the plant too.
• It argues the organic case before it teaches anything. The wildlife position is a prerequisite rather than a nice-to-have — if you want to share your garden with beautiful creatures, you must start by not using pesticides.
• It documents his own failures. Box blight has wrecked his hedges and topiary; hundreds of trees he planted have grown problematically large. He writes that even the most experienced gardeners get things wrong, and that you need the humility to accept your garden is not necessarily more important than anything else.
• Concrete claims you can act on: restricting the roots increases chilli yields; cucumbers pollinated by male flowers turn bitter; strawberries run on roughly a four-year cycle and old plants should be pulled; gooseberries and currants benefit from wood ash; cool temperatures give yellow autumn colour while warm days with cold nights give red.
• Eighteen individual garden areas at Longmeadow get their own treatment — the Jewel Garden, Cottage Garden, Damp Garden, Paradise Garden, Wildlife Garden, Coppice and the rest — which is either the book's charm or its limitation, depending on how much your plot resembles two Herefordshire acres.