RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening
New Edition
Christopher Brickell (ed.), Guy Barter (RHS) · DK, 2022
The technique encyclopaedia — how to do things, not what to plant. If you buy one big reference for a lifetime, this is the strongest candidate.
The 4th edition (2012) and 5th edition (2022) are both 752-page hardbacks with near-identical cover treatment. They are very easy to confuse on a secondhand listing. The current edition is 9780241545782.
What's actually in it
- Organised by garden discipline rather than by plant: garden planning and design, ornamental trees, shrubs, climbers, roses, perennials and annuals, the rock garden, bulbs, the water garden, cacti and succulents, the lawn, the herb garden, the vegetable garden, the fruit garden, the indoor garden.
- Then the practical spine: tools and equipment, greenhouses and frames, structures and surfaces, climate, soils and fertilisers, principles of propagation, plant problems and basic botany.
- Step-by-step photographic sequences throughout for propagation, pruning, sowing, lawn care and glasshouse work.
- New in the 2022 edition: climate-resilient gardening, peat-free growing and organic methods, plus wildlife gardening and updated pest and disease guidance.
What it actually says
Specifics from inside the book — so you can judge whether it's telling you anything you don't already know.
- It is organised by garden discipline, not by plant — ornamental trees, shrubs, climbers, roses, perennials, the rock garden, bulbs, water, the lawn, the herb garden, the vegetable garden, the fruit garden, the indoor garden — then tools, greenhouses, structures, climate, soils, propagation, plant problems and basic botany.
- Step-by-step photographic sequences throughout for propagation, pruning, sowing, lawn care and glasshouse work. This is the how-to volume; its sister book is the what-to-plant one.
- The 2022 revision is explicitly framed around sustainability, naming peat-free and organic growing, environment, wildlife and edibles as updated topic areas, plus techniques for making a garden more resilient to climate change.
What we couldn't checkNo preview, extract or contents listing for the 2022 fifth edition is publicly available, so we can describe its architecture and the publisher's account of what changed, but we have not sampled the new climate or peat-free material ourselves.
Buy it if
You want the one book that tells you how to actually do any garden job, and you'll still be using it in twenty years.
Don't buy it if
Anyone wanting to identify or choose plants — that's the <em>Plants and Flowers</em> volume, not this one.
Where it falls short
It is not a plant-selection or identification book. House plants get a single "indoor garden" section, so it answers only half of what a modern gardener wants. Garden design is covered as principles, not as a portfolio. And it weighs three kilos — this lives on a desk, not in a shed. If you already own the 2012 edition, the core technique content is largely the same; you'd be buying the sustainability and climate updates.
Who wrote it
Christopher Brickell CBE VMH took a horticulture degree at Reading in 1954, joined the RHS in 1958 as assistant to the botanist at Wisley, became Director of Wisley in 1969 and the society's first Director General in 1985, retiring in 1993. He chaired the international commission on cultivated plant nomenclature, founded the Horticultural Taxonomy Group and Plant Heritage, and co-authored a monograph on Daphne — a working botanist, not merely an editor. Alongside him, Guy Barter is RHS Chief Horticulturist: a horticulture degree from Bath, thirty-five years at the society, eighteen of them running the advisory service, and a stated priority that RHS advice "is based on evidence". One caveat: Brickell retired in 1993, so the currency of the 2022 revision rests on Barter and the RHS team rather than on him.
Where it was written
UK hardiness, UK seasons, UK legislation.
The facts
- AuthorChristopher Brickell (ed.), Guy Barter (RHS)
- PublisherDK
- Published2022
- Edition5th edition
- FormatHardback, 752 pages
- ISBN-13
9780241545782 - LevelReference
Checked against publisher listings, UK retailers and library records in August 2026. If any of this is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.
Where to get it
Buying secondhand? Match the ISBN above — several books on this shelf have editions that look identical but aren't.