RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening New Edition

Great bookA must have

I gave this to a member of the family for Christmas but not before I had enjoyed a good look at it and ascertained that it was as well produced and informative as I had hoped.

Encyclopedia's by their very definition must be encyclopedic - that means covering all the main facets of a topic, and covering them in sufficient detail to make it useful. In the days of the internet, it could be that books like this are not needed - but gardening is one of those topics (like cooking or sport) where you will waste more time trawling through cookie-laden ad-invested websites with clickbait, and even then will not be sure what you are reading is legitimate. You need a single source of truth, and for garden lovers this is it. Great book and great content. My one criticism is that the text is a bit small. Images are good and clear. Backing is solid and good quality. Works well as a coffee table book and a reference book.

When you first get this book you're surprised at the weight, size and feel. You realise it's a quality item from the outset. It's well bound and printed in lovely detail. Lots of information, detailed photos and many diagrams throughout. Topics are well laid out too with sensible indexes to easily find what you might be looking for.Whilst it is a reference book, it's presented so nicely that it's not heavy going to read through. If you're a gardener it's the type of book you'd likely leave on your coffee table and flick through at your leisure. Just browsing through it gives you lots of ideas for things you may not have thought of before, ideas for next year, ways to transform parts of your garden you might have considered.It caters to novices and seasoned gardeners too offering practical advice alongside more botanical knowledge.Genuinely impressed with all aspects of this book. It would make an ideal gift for a gardener. Yes it's a little more expensive than some others, but it screams quality in the flesh. It's the type of book you keep for years rather than something you read, absorb then pass on.Very impressed, I'd buy it without hesitation.

The Royal Horticultural Society is a well recognised household name and is the UK’s leading gardening charity. The print quality and imagery is excellent, but in my copy there are a few marks where it seems the ink has transferred onto some of the pages which is a little disappointing and spoils an otherwise lovely print - but your copy may vary.This is a huge book, with 752 pages and weighing in at 3kg, there is a lot of information in here but it’s quite nicely condensed down into chunks and paragraphs so it’s not completely overwhelming. It covers a huge variety of topics and subjects for all level of skill. It’s basically an all-in-one-stop-shop for anything gardening or horticulture related.Overall, you can tell a lot of work has gone into crafting every page of this book & for the money I think it is very reasonable. This is a fantastic book or gift idea for any gardening hobbyist or student that is studying horticulture. Thank you for reading my review, if you found it helpful let me know below!

This is an incredibly comprehensive and beautifully presented gardening encyclopaedia as you would expect from the RHS.The breadth of topics covered is incredible…details and instructions about a huge range of plants, how to organise your gardens, even building rockeries and water features. This could replace several separate instructional books.This is one of those books that highlights the value of expertise in a time when you can look up most things on the internet, the RHS have poured so much expert knowledge into this. Would make a brilliant gift for a gardening enthusiast…even the very experienced would find this really useful.

Super impressed with this large encyclopedia lots of really good stuff insideVery impressed with the format of the book the slightly shiny pages and the index is fantastic you can really go to what you need to read about brilliantThe photographs are stunning both small and large and gives you all the details you need for gardening in one book brilliantReally impressed with the old style format an index of front and back obviously it comes at a high price £35 but if you are any sort of king Gardner this is a fantastic book I am loving reading it and it's giving me some tips and hints how to improve my garden straight away brilliant

This is a beautiful and useful book which would make a perfect gift for any gardener, from novice to expert. It’s a proper two-handed job as a very hefty tome, but pretty enough to sit on a coffee table for easy reference. And undoubtedly the owner will want to access it regularly, as it is packed full of information on just about every imaginable aspect of gardening, from basic botany to garden design and maintenance, specific sections on popular plants and plant groups, right through to specialist subjects like attracting pollinators, living roofs, and establishing meadows. It’s nicely laid out and lavishly illustrated with diagrams, step-by-step photo tutorials, plant identification, and of course plenty of aspirational shots of beautiful gardens. At £34.15 at time of review, it doesn’t exactly come cheap, but this is such a one-size-fits-all, comprehensive book that it will likely pay for itself by rendering many smaller volumes obsolete.