Product Description

'If I have learned only one thing from my travels around the world it is that no garden is an island. Context is everything.' Monty Don visits each continent in this landmark series on gardens of the world. We are introduced to the unique floating gardens of the Amazon and the colourful alpine flower meadows of Norway, modest domestic gardens in Havana and Bali, Monet's world-famous Giverny and the Dutch tour-de-force Het Loo, the formal magnificence of Renaissance Italian water gardens, the tropical planting traditions of Thailand, and the intriguing fusion of indigenous and colonial garden cultures in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Each garden is placed in context, horticultural preconceptions are abandoned and Monty is constantly surprised by the unexpected locations where gardens thrive. A vivid account of travel, adventure, beauty and the pursuit of knowledge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49460 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Tim Richardson, GARDENS ILLUSTRATED
'His style is light, smooth and accessible, yet also sensitive, detailed and generally historically reliable... this is a good read with plenty of novelty.'

Review
'His style is light, smooth and accessible, yet also sensitive, detailed and generally historically reliable... this is a good read with plenty of novelty.' (Tim Richardson GARDENS ILLUSTRATED )

'intelligently written and he puts each garden in context in a way that is both accessible, yet thought provoking.' (GARDENS MONTHLY )

'It's an absorbing journey made far more appealing than your average garden guide thanks largely to the author's readiness to question and explore.' (GARDEN NEWS )

'Who better to guide us on this journey than the nation's most thoughtful horticulturalist...?' (Stephanie Donaldson COUNTRY LIVING )

'Don is a curious and engaging guide, as thrilled by the ad hoc floating vegetable plots of the Amazon as by formal Zen gardens...' (THE INDEPENDENT )

'a personal and fascinating insight into gardens around the world.' (GARDEN ANSWERS )

'This colourful account by the travelling garden connoisseur covers the most emotive and awe-inspiring gardens worldwide.' (GRAND DESIGNS )

'Each garden is described in intimate, vivid detail, with diary-style immediacy... the gardens come alive through Don's very personal responses to them.' (ORGANIC GARDENING )

GARDEN NEWS
'It's an absorbing journey made far more appealing than your average garden guide thanks largely to the author's readiness to question and explore.'

Customer Reviews

Personal, hefty and covetable; shame about the pictures
This is a substantial book, I only wish it had been even more so. There's enough text about each garden to make it interesting even if you are fairly knowledgable already; the balance of information and opinion is nicely judged. At ten pounds, it's an absolute bargain. I would have given three times that though for a bigger budget devoted to the photographs. Don't get me wrong, they're all right - they give you a good idea of each garden. All I'm saying is: buy the book for the words, not the images. It isn't coffee table material (I can't believe I'm saying this as though it were a problem!) Of course the answer is to record the television programmes for the visual element. This is the only one of MD's books from which the pictures don't sink into the mind as much as the words (ignoring the ones that have none). But gardens are to be looked at; books do outlast other media; it was an opportunity lost. It only matters because the prose is worth it: informed, honest, reflective, as though he had written it as notes for you. If nothing else it will make you realise that any garden vist you make yourself, your own interest and pleasure the only agenda and in no tearing television-imposed hurry, would be more enjoyable because of this book.

Excellent - but !
I love Monty Don's writing, as the previous review states in his comments - 'it feel's personal' and you get a really good feel of what he is seeing on his tour of the gardens. The details of his note taking etc. make it a more enjoyable read than a book that is just factual. I felt that you were getting an honest review of how he felt at the time of writing and being human enough to comment on how he might feel differently at other times of visiting some of them. My disapointment came from the appearance of the book and wish that they had kept more to the look of 'The Jewel Garden' which captured me straight away from the beautiful photography on the front cover and the pics inside. If there had been more photographs to show what Monty is describing in "Around the world in 80 Gardens' it may have benefited from it, but I think this has been the publishers at fault rather than Monty Don. I must admit I hated the cover design if I had been the Co. who had produced it I don't think I would have put my website on the inside flap. Well done to Montague though, and long may he continue writing in this engaging manner.

A great ambassador for the gardening world
We had Percy Thrower, for those that can recall him, then along came Alan, almost a Percy Thrower. And now we have Monty ... a veritable Percy Thrower in the making. He gives a grat book here that makes no claims of sending the reader to gardening euphoria. What it does do is take a look at some great gardens and gives us what we want to know, anything more is a bonus, which this surely is. Worship him while you have him, lest Alan comes back.