For once, I agree with everybody ! This book is in the classic genre of the gardening essay, which almost invariably has more to offer the keen gardener, thoughtful or thoughtless, than the formulaic "how to do it" books. This genre shouldn't need illustrations -- when it does, it's usually a failure -- and this book doesn't need them either but it's none the worse for having a few.
A glance through the copious index (the reviewer whose copy didn't have one should ask for his money back) reveals the breadth of the writing; what other gardening book contains mentions of Lauren Bacall, Sophie Click-Portal, the Emperor Tiberius and Alexander the Great (the last two had to come in, of course), alongside the usual gardening worthies, various princesses, lords and ladies, and, the most intriguing entry of all, "Stoat, and Nicholas Ridley"...
In return for the privilege of at last reading the truth about weed killers from a garden writer, one can forgive a few errors; nobody knows everything. Robin rightly praises the former head gardener of Powis Castle, James Hancock, whose wife and I once belonged to the same painting group, but places Powis Castle in Shropshire. In rural terms Powis Castle and I are neighbours, being separated by only a few fields, and I can assure him that we are both firmly in Wales -- understandably, you might think, in the County of Powys (but note the different spelling). I believe he may also be unjustifiably denigrating (and drugging !) his badgers; dig up his lawns they may, as they do mine, but it is the squirrels, voles and mice which dine prodigiously off the crocus corms.
The most effective education is that which simultaneously entertains. You can't go wrong here. Get the first edition whilst you can; it's an investment as well as an entertaining education.
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