It's not often you find a book that lives up to its cover blurb, but this one does. In it the author, who has restored and maintained some of England's most important gardens, shares his own garden and plant wisdom with the reader. The cover reads " The Garden Through the Year is an Invitation to stroll around the garden, season by season, month by month....The reader receives the benefit of Thomas's tremendous experience, delivered in the form of a conversation with an intimate friend." That, together with beautiful and relevant illustrations, are what you get in this book.

The author sets out to tell us which plants he treasures in his garden each month of the year and how they contribute, whether by flower, foliage or bark, to the beauty of the garden at that time of year. He throws in some suggestions to help us grow the plant more successfully.

Mr Thomas was about 90 years old when he wrote this book so we can honestly say he is sharing a lifetime of experience with us. His knowledge of plants and how they grow is profound and he has received almost all the chief honours of the horticultural world. The pleasure of this book is that his knowledge and experience are shared in such a conversational way, as if the reader was strolling around his garden with him and he was chatting about his plants. It's not often I feel enriched by a book, but this one both enriched me and made me feel more confident about my garden.

The Garden Through the Year is a beautiful and wonderful book. It would make an excellent addition to any serious gardener's own personal library. It would also make a terrific present for anyone you know who loves gardening.
I am writing this today, April 21, 03, on the day that I just heard that the author Graham Stuart Thomas just died. Thomas was easily one of the greatest of all the English garden writers. He wrote many marvelous books and in every one of them, his personality and vast experience shines brightly through.
This latest book is no exception to that rule of excellence in garden writing. I am a garden writer myself (Safe Sex in the Garden, Ten Speed Press)and I always appreciate extra good, extra informed garden writing. No one does it better than Graham Stuart Thomas. First, Thomas was an extraordinary gardener, in the finest tradition of English gardeners. In this book he brings in many new and exciting plants and always his writing is full of the best possible gardening advice. This is a very useful book for someone who is interested in how his/her garden might look (or could look!) in different seasons.
In my own back yard I have a large and beautiful yellow rose bush, a David Austin creation, called, 'Graham Thomas.' This rose smells wonderful, grows strongly, and has that old fashioned petal form that is a joy to see. Like the writer it was named for, the rose is a winner. If you have never had the pleasure of reading any Graham Thomas, buy this book and you'll be pleased. If you are already familar with his work, buy it also, and savor the high quality of an excellent book, probably the last one from the garden master, Graham Stuart Thomas.

Gertrude Jekyll influences the great gardeners that influence the rest of us. Her book on color is apparently among her best writings. This book is valuable to anyone who is interested in gardening history. Her principles are also at the heart of modern English garden design. Her core belief was that gardening is more art than craft, and she borrows color principles from painters.

I bought this book several years ago and left it on the shelf. Then one day when I was looking up a particular shrub, I decided to check this book. From that time forth it has been my first choice when deciding on selecting a particular shrub. The auther is a exceptional horticulturist of many years standing with several plants named after him.

I love this book, but found it a little daunting when I first unwrapped it. It is not your standard "lots of beautiful pictures" book. There are a few pictures, but they are not particularly good. It is the writing and the information contained that make this book so valuable. I keep it on my bedside table now and browse through it regularly, to read the fascinating histories and yummy descriptions of roses.

One thing that makes this book so excellent is the beautiful writing and the fact that he includes text and information from older rose resources/material that would be difficult to find without going to an extensive library. It is informative and gives detailed histories of old garden roses with descriptions that truly give you a feel for the roses. There is a rich section on propagation and the cultivation of roses, as well, although I found this less interesting than the historical information. I am particularly interested in Moss roses and this book had excellent material relating to the development of this type of rose, as well as all the other categories such as Portlands, Gallicas, Albas, etc. If you are confused by the categories, you cannot find a better source for explaining how these classes are different and how they may have come into being. I highly recommend it for people who are interested in history and development of roses. I have not seen a better book in this category, and I have quite a number of rose books.

If you are fascinated with the history of the rose, you should get this book--I read this time and time again when considering additions to my garden or when I simply want to know more about the old garden roses I grow and get the characterists of the various classes of rose straight in my mind.

One of the previous reviews said that this book is "not for the gardener." Perhaps it is not for the general, whining newby who can't tell the difference between a hybrid tea and a gallica or the lazy reader who can't get past any book that isn't slopped about with gaudy, glossy photographs and illustrations. But it *is* for the TRUE gardener who appreciates substance over style and really wants to learn about all that roses have to offer. The information contained in this book is priceless, charming and soul-satisfying. If you want a basic rose book with those goofy illustrated directions for planting a rose or identifying black spot, then please drive to Wal-Mart and pick one up there. If, however, you have outgrown the Ortho series (or the equivalent) and want something a bit more...wonderful...then please look no farther than G.S. Thomas and his unsurpassed trilogy of rose books.

If you are a rose-lover who lives from show to show, this book is not likely to please. Nor is it likely to be a good book first book for people new to roses. Firstly, it is not a picture book, though it does have some of the best rose photos to be found in books. Secondly it is not about the "hot" roses of today Hybrid Teas, Floribundas, and Miniatures.

Graham Stuart Thomas started out growing such roses, but in his early twenties he was visited by Constance Spry, an Old Rose lover who changed the way he looked at roses. Thomas has spent the rest of his life preserving, promoting, and documenting Old Roses, Shrub Roses, and Climbing Roses. His studies have honed his aesthetic sensibilities. And it is these keen sensibilities that inform this book. We can rely on Thomas to tell us not just the features and history of a rose, but to relate to us how he feels about it. It is this judgement that makes the book extremely valuable.

As we mentioned, the book has a section of one or two hundred photographs and watercolor paintings. These are classic photos, of whole plants. They teach us how the roses will look as garden plants. And as such they are more valuable than a ten thousand photos of single hybrid tea blossoms.

It is easy to recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn how to choose good, gardenworthy roses that work as landscape plants. Any well-rounded rose grower really should have spent some hours perusing its pages.

I wanted to like this book. I just finished the Dudley Warner Book, in the same classic gardening series, which I had savored like a good box of chocolates, rationing out a few pages, each day. But this one--oddly enough--depressed me slightly. It has a sad subplot. You have this stiff upper lip British Matron, who was married to Walter, who oppressed every good idea she had for their garden. She basically isn't able to implement her visions until he dies. But once he's dead you realize, in her humerous complaints, that she misses him. The rest is all gardening, without the breathtaking observations Charles Dudley Warner has, about plants, and without the richness of his language. Fish is an OK writer, but she's not great. I guess Charles Dudley Warner is an impossible act to follow. Warner has one chapter where General Ulysses Grant visits, then he realizes he must burn the chair he sat in. He's unbelievably funny. That book is full of life and a grand vision. Fish's book is somehow claustrophobic. Reading Warner's book, I feel like I'm in a most interesting place filled with surprises, in Fish's book I feel like I'm trapped in a garden, I'd rather exit. I've read about half of her book, and you'd have to pay me to finish it. I frown when I see it on the pile of books behind my comode.

WE MADE A GARDEN is a lovely little book by Margery Fish, an "elderly" English lady who with her husband (he who must be obeyed or cleverly deceived it seems) moved to a country manor and converted the mostly lawn areas into gardens of shrubs, flowers, and herbs. First published in the U.K. in the 1950s, the book has been republished as part of the 'Modern Library Garden Series' edited by Michael Pollan.

Fish's little book will be considered a gem by experienced gardeners who can picture the plants she names in the mind's eye, identify with her triumphs and failures, and appreciate a useful clues from an obviously seasoned hand. Garden veterans will also identify with the greedy gardener who never has enough space, the stubborn gardener who plants Nepeta despite it's runaway habits, the recalcitrant gardener who hides the verboten brilliant orange Lychnis chalcedonica at the back of the beds, and the disobedient gardener who leaves many openings in the cemented walkway hubby designed to thwart weeds.

The book may appear a bit dense to the new gardener as it describes activities such as composing flower beds, creating walkways, and engineering rock gardens with inferior rocks,with no illustrations, other than a few black and white photos-one of Mrs Fish on bended knee at work in her rock garden. However, all is not lost. Determined gardeners unfamiliar with the various plants Mrs Fish names can refer to a nursery catalogue since 60-70 percent of the plants available in the 1950s can be found contemporary mail order publications