What to sow, grow and do – A seasonal garden guide from Benjamin Pope.

Benjamin Pope has worked in horticulture for over twenty years and is presently head gardener in a private estate in West Sussex where he cares for a large walled kitchen garden with extensive herbaceous borders and also manages meadows and woodlands on the estate. He holds an RHS Master of Horticulture and writes and lectures extensively. He is a man of great gardening experience and has distilled and presented it in this volume which will guide aspirational gardeners through the gardening year with listings of best plants in that season, things to do, essential tasks and something special to celebrate the season. It is all straight forward, well organised, explained clearly and a fail safe guide to bring the beginner and enthusiastic gardener through the gardening year. The author suggests that the reader “consider all of this a starting-off point to help you find what works for you, your life and your garden.”

Benjamin Pope believes “there’s a gardening seed inside all of us” and that gardening in not all about having the fabled green fingers but more about observation, really looking at the world about us, at how plants grow in our gardens and living with and learning from this experience. Despite his many years of experience he still feels that one of the amazing things about gardening is that you never stop learning; that there is always a new plant to grow and a new method of growing any plant to perfection. He has seen the years pass and the seasons change with no two the same it seems and has found that this variety of experience and unpredictability is part of what keeps gardening so exciting. It is this attitude, this openness to constant learning, that allows the author to present his material with an ever-fresh approach, inviting and encouraging rather that instructional in tone. It is a guide which will bring the reader gently through the growing year, point one towards the things you can do to encourage a flourishing garden…and gardener!

[What to sow, grow and do, A season garden guide, Benjamin Pope, Bloom -for Frances Lincoln, London, 2022, Hardback, 240 pages, £22, ISBN: 978-0-7112-69934]