Lessons from the great gardeners Forty gardening icons and what they teach us

From the author of the encyclopedic The Complete Book of Vegetables (2010) comes an informal, primarily Western history of gardening through profiles of 40 iconic gardeners. There's André Le Nôtre (1613-1700), who brought topiary and sculpture, not to mention a sense of scale, to the gardens at Versailles; Briton William Robinson (1838-1935), who loosened the barren geometry of gardening and encouraged naturalistic planting and the use of gardens to feed his nation's poor; and American railroad tycoon Henry Huntington (1850-1927), whose astonishing desert garden near L.A. is still enjoyed by visitors today. Other figures include Thomas Jefferson, Claude Monet, James Veitch Jr. (namesake of Britain's coveted Veitch Memorial Medal), and such modern-day gardeners as Penelope Hobhouse, Piet Oudolf, and Dan Hinkley. Each profile features a biography of the gardener, a page of lessons that define that gardener's philosophy, and a generous selection of color illustrations of the gardens, and specific plants, they cultivated. A useful and entertaining, if not essential, reference.--Moores, Alan Copyright 2016 Booklist