Top Gardening Books I Love: A Cottage on Bunker Hill Review

A Beautiful & Easy-Care Flower Garden by Stacy Ling

My friend Stacy Ling has created an excellent guide for flower lovers. Her book, “The Bricks ‘n Blooms Guide to a Beautiful and Easy-Care Flower Garden“, is filled with useful guidance and centers on simple-care gardening – a true lifesaver if keeping plants alive isn’t your greatest strength!

The Bricks ‘n Blooms Guide to a Beautiful and Easy-Care Flower Garden belongs in the collection of gardeners at every experience level. It explores all areas of flower gardening, including perennials and shrubs.

This beautifully illustrated guide highlights easy-care plants, uncomplicated methods, and practical suggestions (and I especially appreciate the comfortable, readable font size!). Stacy aims to remove the fear often connected with flower gardening, inspiring readers to grow gorgeous blooms without unnecessary frustration.

Whether you’re an experienced gardener hoping to make things easier or a total beginner, this book has something valuable to teach you.

Stacy has also recently released The Bricks n Blooms Beautiful and Easy-Care Flower Garden Planner.

Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden

Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden: Grow, Harvest, and Arrange Stunning Seasonal Blooms by Erin Benzakein is a wonderful choice for anyone who enjoys bringing fresh flowers indoors. Benzakein’s photographs are just as stunning as her floral creations, and the book is full of expert advice for producing plentiful blooms in gardens of every size.

With more than 300 pages, this substantial book covers everything from the fundamentals and getting started to sowing seeds, selecting cut-flower varieties, seasonal chores, beautiful photography, and guidance for growing a thriving flower garden.

I chose the Kindle edition because I couldn’t bear to wait two days for the printed copy! Still, I suggest purchasing the physical version so you can fully enjoy all the beautiful photographs.

From Seed To Bloom by Milli Proust

From Seed to Bloom by Milli Proust belongs on the shelf of every flower enthusiast or budding gardener! This gorgeous, hands-on guide is filled with useful tips, covering everything from establishing a flower bed from the ground up to designing breathtaking floral arrangements. Across the seasons, you’ll discover clear directions for sowing seeds, pinching, composting, and cultivating 24 essential cut flowers. It has quickly become my gardening bible! I’m especially fond of the lively writing, creative floral inspiration, and thorough guidance on sustainable design practices.

Whether your main passion is cultivating flowers or creating arrangements, this distinctive guide offers plenty of inspiration

The book’s photography is stunning, and I adore the way Milli Proust showcases her blooms! I’m constantly reaching for it just to admire the images(this one sits on my coffee table).

Floret Farm’s A Year in Flowers

Floret Farm’s A Year in Flowers: Designing Gorgeous Arrangements for Every Season is another title by Erin Benzakein. It introduces readers to a range of flowers suitable for arrangements, accompanied by lovely photographs and information about how long each bloom lasts in a vase.

You’ll find detailed, step-by-step lessons for assembling stunning floral displays, along with ideas for other flower-related projects. This hardcover volume spans more than 300 pages.

French Blooms by Sandra Sigman

In her bookFrench Blooms, award-winning floral artist Sandra Sigman reveals her love for the French philosophy of floral design. She views arrangements as works of art, meant to overflow with color, texture, and an element of surprise. Drawing on her experiences in Paris, Sigman offers straightforward instructions for making these elegant displays for every room in your home. The book features suggestions for mantels, dining tables, bathrooms, and even hand-tied bouquets.

French Blooms explores more than flowers alone. Sigman shares recommendations for selecting vases and vessels, ranging from timeless ceramic designs to vintage treasures. She also provides advice for keeping blooms fresh and lists the essential tools to have on hand. Featuring beautiful images captured across France, this book is both a visual treat and an introduction to bringing French floral elegance into your home.

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The Old Farmer’s Almanac: Timeless Gardening Advice

For many generations, New England gardeners have turned to the Old Farmer’s Almanac for trusted knowledge. Its flower and vegetable gardening manuals provide proven guidance, planting calendars, and regional tips ideally suited to achieving success in New England’s distinctive climate.

Searching for beginner-friendly books that include photographs while explaining the fundamentals of gardening? These guides are hard to surpass! They generally cost between $12-$14 each on Amazon and come in paperback editions. Both titles also include journal pages for recording various gardening activities.

Since childhood, I’ve enjoyed browsing through the almanac. The poems printed along the side of each month were—and remain—one of my favorite features. The yearly Almanac is also packed with weather forecasts, folklore, and useful advice—a genuine New England classic for anyone who enjoys working in the soil.

Growing with Matt Mattus

I originally found Matt Mattus on Instagram before learning that he lives just across the Massachusetts border from me! However, his books are useful for gardeners far beyond New England.

In Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening, Matt Mattus presents professional advice on cultivating annuals and biennials, drawing from his personal gardening experience. With comprehensive directions and vibrant photographs, the book goes well beyond the information found on a basic seed packet. You’ll explore seed starting, transplanting, cultivating many types of flowers—including lilacs, wisteria, and numerous bulbs—and forcing blossoms during winter. Whether your goal is a cut-flower plot, an attractive border, or simply a greater appreciation of flowers, Mattus provides plenty of helpful instruction.

Mastering the Art of Vegetable Gardening serves as an in-depth resource for growing intriguing and uncommon produce. Explore unfamiliar varieties of everyday vegetables, learn their backstories, and find out how to cultivate them! Featuring stunning images, specialized advice, and more than 200 thorough profiles of vegetables and herbs, this book has plenty to offer. Discover distinctive forms of familiar vegetables. If you’re prepared to elevate your vegetable garden, this guide is an excellent choice.

The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible

Hoping to raise flavorful, organic vegetables like an expert? Ed Smith’s The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible has remained popular for many years. His W-O-R-D method removes much of the uncertainty from gardening—wide rows, organic techniques, raised beds, and deep soil. Master essentials such as succession planting, manage even the most temperamental crops, lengthen your harvest through extended-season strategies, and uncover interesting new vegetable varieties.

I purchased this book more than 10 years ago and have relied on it ever since. It’s a straightforward guide featuring photographs and clear, accessible writing that’s especially helpful for novice gardeners.

The Elegant & Edible Garden by Linda Vater

Say goodbye to dull vegetable plots! The Elegant and Edible Garden teaches you to design a potager—a stunning space filled with flowers, vegetables, fruits, and herbs. It can be delightful to view as well as rewarding to harvest.

Linda Vater, the gardening expert behindThe Potager Blog, Instagram, and website, explains how to turn your potager into an inviting gathering place for family and friends. The book includes more structured garden concepts along with relaxed design suggestions that can be adapted to your taste. You’ll also find guidance on organic cultivation, attractive focal features, and arranging each element in the ideal location.

Joe Lamp’l’s The Vegetable Gardening Book

Think you’ve mastered vegetable gardening? Joe Lamp’l has something to tell you! His book, The Vegetable Gardening Book, is packed with professional wisdom collected through years of hands-on experience and conversations with knowledgeable growers.

Prepare to explore everything from sowing seeds to constructing tomato supports, welcoming pollinators, and developing rich organic soil. You’ll find clever layout suggestions for achieving the best harvest, methods for maintaining an easy-care garden, overviews of 40 favorite crops, a useful crop rotation guide, and advice about extending the season, using raised beds, choosing tools, and cultivating food in any setting.

He hosts an excellent podcast, too! The Joe Gardener Show

The Complete Gardener by Monty Don

If Monty Don is unfamiliar to you, he is a celebrated British horticulturist who became widely recognized as the main presenter of the BBC gardening show Gardeners’ World beginning in 2003. He has written many books, establishing himself as the UK’s foremost garden author. I discovered him on YouTube several years back.

Monty Don’s “The Complete Gardener” is a thorough, hands-on manual created for gardeners at every skill level. This refreshed modern classic highlights organic techniques and the creation of a welcoming refuge for wildlife. At 440 pages, it’s a substantial book! On Amazon, it generally costs about $20.

Inside, you’ll find the fundamentals of garden planning, design, and plant maintenance, along with detailed guidance for growing flowers, vegetables, and fruit. It also offers a look around each of his gardens.

He runs a website of his own as well: Monty Don

The New Seed-Starters Handbook

When I decided to learn more about sowing seeds indoors, I ordered The New Seed-Starters Handbook from Amazon since it had excellent reviews.

It showed me all the essentials of seed starting, while also explaining how to transplant seedlings into the garden and care for them as they grow.

I especially appreciate the guidance provided for every seed, including both vegetables and flowers. The writing is straightforward while remaining simple to follow.

It’s yet another gardening book I regularly consult.