Did the Romans have rakes? Did the monks get muddy? Did the potato seem really, really weird when it arrived on our shores? This lively `potted` history of gardening in Britain takes us on a garden tour from the thorn hedges around prehistoric settlements to the rage for ornamental grasses & `outdoor rooms` today. It tracks down the ordinary folk who worked the earth
- the apprentice boys & weeding women, the florists & nursery gardeners
- as well as aristocrats & grand designers & famous plant-hunters. Coloured by Jenny Uglow`s own love for plants, & brought to life in the many vivid illustrations, it deals not only with flowery meads, grottoes & vistas, landscapes & ha-has, parks & allotments, but tells you, for example, how the Tudors made their curious knots; how housewives used herbs to stop freckles; how the suburbs dug for victory in World War II. With a brief guide to particular historic or evocative gardens open to the public, this is a book to put in your pocket when planning a summer day out
- but also to read in your deckchair with a glass of cold wine, when dead-heading is simply too much.