Top 10 gardening books to gift in Christmas 2025
Helen Griffin has scoured the shelves for this year’s best new books so that you don’t have to
There’s been a bumper crop of new gardening books in 2025, offering inspiration for every kind of gardener – from the eco-curious beginner to the seasoned designer seeking fresh ideas. This year’s titles celebrate gardens as places of creativity, connection, and care, blending beauty with
From Jo Thompson’s reimagining of romantic planting for a changing climate to Simon Akeroyd’s inventive ways to regrow your groceries, and from contemporary garden showcases to literary escapes, RHS Books Publisher Helen Griffin selects her top picks for the season – thoughtful, beautifully made books that promise to inspire, inform, and delight any garden lover this Christmas.
10 gift-worthy gardening reads
Explore 10 hand-picked gardening titles for the festive season – from design inspiration to sustainable growing –each with a short overview and where to buy them. We finish with a quick guide to the best RHS books to make Christmas gift shopping beautifully simple.
1) The Contemporary Garden
By Phaidon editors, introduced by Annie Guilfoyle
Published by Phaidon, October 2025, 336pp, RRP £44.95
Clear the coffee table for this game-changing compendium of contemporary garden design. The Contemporary Garden showcases 300 outstanding private, urban, and public projects from around the world. Jaw-dropping photography is paired with concise stories of the owners, creators, and their processes – all told with a sensitivity to planting and place. A feast of inspirational escapism.
2) Literary Gardens
By Sandra Lawrence and Lucille Clerc
Published by Frances Lincoln, September 2025, 192pp, RRP £19.99
Literary Gardens combines consummate storytelling and exquisite illustrations in a collection of 30 writers’ and poets’ imaginary gardens – an emotional rediscovery. From the healing pages of The Secret Garden, the glamour of The Great Gatsby, and the fantastical Discworld of Terry Pratchett’s Mort, our favourite plots are memorably rekindled.
3) How to Design a Garden
By Pollyanna Wilkinson
Published by DK, February 2025, 192pp, RRP £22
Plan the path of your garden redesign with this chatty, confidence-building guide to finding your style and unlocking your garden’s potential. How to Design a Garden covers everything from wish lists and water features to planting schemes and play spaces, as author Polly tackles all the practical tasks to help you create your own personal Eden.
4) The Kindest Garden
By Marian Boswall
Published by Frances Lincoln, April 2025, 240pp, RRP £25
The Kindest Garden is a hands-on guide to regenerative gardening that encourages us to adopt the mindsets and practices that nurture biodiversity from soil to gut. Underpinned by wisdom and kindness, author Marian Boswall shares practical advice, inspiring case studies, and ways to prove that, as responsible gardeners, we can do more good than harm.
5) Garden People
By Ursula Buchan, Anna Pavord and Brent Elliott
Published by Thames & Hudson, April 20205, 160pp, RRP £40
A horticultural who’s who of post-war Britain, Garden People captures life through the lens of photographer Valerie Finnis (1924–2006). From Waterperry Ladies College to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, she helped redefine garden photography with her trusted Rolleiflex. Highlights include Roald Dahl, Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst, and candid portraits of hundreds of other luminaries.
6) Grow a New Garden
By Becky Searle
Published by Chelsea Green Publishing, April 2025, 240pp, RRP £25
Every good beginner’s gardening book starts with the soil – and Becky Searle’s exceeds expectations. In Grow a New Garden, she urges new gardeners not just to see a garden, but to recognise an ecosystem. Using organic methods to create a garden on unfamiliar ground, she shares both the big picture and the fine detail, opening the door to planning a design, establishing crops, encouraging wildlife, and understanding a multitude of important processes.
7) The Flower Thesaurus
By Liz Potter
Published by BBC Books, March 2025, 288pp, RRP £26
For gardeners guided by colour, this book is a dazzling palette-pleaser. The Flower Thesaurus is a beautifully crafted sourcebook of floral pairings and planting inspiration, supported by a clear guide to colour theory. Organised into colour-themed chapters, each hero plant is paired with companions for harmony, contrast, or accent – bringing beds, borders, and containers to life.
8) Gardenista: The Low-Impact Garden
By Kendra Wilson
Published by Artisan, October 2025, 304pp, RRP £35
Gardenista is an inspiring guide for gardeners who want beauty without excess. It explores how thoughtful design and careful choices – from resilient planting to soil care and water use – can make gardens both sustainable and deeply satisfying. Blending design aspiration with grounded, practical advice, it shows how to create gardens that tread lightly while thriving.
9) Grow Your Groceries
By Simon Akeroyd
Published by DK, March 2025, 192pp, RRP £16.99
Prolific author Simon Akeroyd – a TikTok star with over a million followers – also knows his onions. Curious about the bits usually destined for the
10) The New Romantic Garden
By Jo Thompson
Published by Rizzoli, February 2025, 240pp, RRP £38.95
The New Romantic Garden is a lush and inspiring showcase of 30 gardens where romance meets resilience. Jo Thompson reimagines the classic English style for a changing climate, combining roses, scent, and structure with ecological awareness. Beautifully written and photographed, it’s a book to stir both imagination and action.
Happy Christmas, happy reading and happy gardening.
