American Garden Guides

Mary Zuazua Jenkins America's Public Gardens  (National Geographic Society, 1998) ISBN 0-7922-7152-1
($25 in the USA and $35 in Canada). A useful well-illustrated guide to approx 300 gardens, though it gives more attention to horticulture than to design. It defines a Public Garden as 'any outdoor or indoor garden open to visitors, either on a definite calendar schedule or by appointment'.

Good regional guides to American gardens are published by Princeton Architectural Press www.papress.com: Paul Bennett Garden Lover's Guide to the Northeast,  Paul Bennett Garden Lover's Guide to the South,  Paul Bennett Garden Lover's Guide to the Midwest, Kathleen McCormick Garden Lover's Guide to the West.

European Garden Guides (in English)

The following guide books are informative and well-illustrated:

Penelope Hobhouse Gardens of Italy (Mitchell Beazley, 1998) ISBN 85732 896 5)

Patrick Taylor Gardens of France (Mitchell Beazley, 1998) ISBN 85732 873 6)

Charles Quest-Ritson Gardens of Germany (Mitchell Beazley, 1998) ISBN 85732 897 3)

UK Garden Guides: books and magazines

National Gardens Scheme yellowbook Gardens of England & Wales is published anually (£4.50 for 1999 edition)

Peter King Good Gardens Guide (Bloomsbury, £14.99 for 1999 edition)

Patrick Taylor The Gardener’s Guide. Published annually (£10.95 for the 1998 edition).

Hudson’s Historic Houses and Gardens (£6.95 for 1999 edition)

Johansens Historic Houses Castles & Gardens (£4.99 for 1999 edition)

 Reviews of the book guides

 The National Gardens Scheme Yellow Book Gardens of England & Wales Open for Charity is published anually (£4.50 for 1999 edition) has details of over 3,500 gardens open to the public. The text that is factual and useful. The Yellow Book allows one to visit many gardens, both large and small, which are open only for a few days per year. These gardens are not included in the Garden Visit and Travel Guide but deatils are available from the National Gardens Scheme website. The Yellow Book also contains on gardens which are open regularly but which also open on a few days for charity. Summary: the content is excellent but, unless you plan to travel extensively, it is often better to purchase one of the NGS regional Yellow Books.

Patrick Taylor The Gardener’s Guide. Published annually (£10.95 for the 1998 edition). Reasonably informative but written in a somewhat gushy style. The guide has details of approx 400 gardens, accurately described as ‘a personal selection’; about 20% of the 'gardens' are really plant nurseries and many excellent gardens are omitted. The colour photographs are satisfactory but only 25% of them give an idea of what there is to see in the garden. The book does not cover the Republic of Ireland. Summary: expensive for an annual publication and not much use for the serious garden visitor. It is a compromise between a picture book and a guidebook.

Peter King Good Gardens Guide. Published anually ( £14.99 for the 1999 edition). This guide has details of almost three times as many gardens as Patrick Taylor’s book but there are few illustrations and they are not printed beside the gardens. The text is marred by poor judgement of design quality and a lack of historical knowledge (see Gardenvisit.com on Montacute). Gardens are rated by stars. Most of the two-star gardens are good but the one-star ratings are totally unreliable. Some public parks are included, which is a welcome addition to a book of this type. Summary: lots of good information but rather expensive for an annual publication and marred by the lack of illustrations.

Kathryn Bradley-Hole The garden lovers guide to Britain (BBC Books £12.95 for the 1998 edition) . No photographs. The descriptions are colourful but somewhat lacking in design, hsitorical or horticultural perspective. Summary: not the garden guide of choice.

Charles Quest Ritson and Christopher Blair. RHS Gardener's Handbook (1999, published by Dorling Kindersley). A useful guidebook with about 120 pages of garden descriptions and much other useful information. Summary: not primarily a garden guide book.

Green Fingers: the gardener's directory (Daily Telegraph, £12.95 for 1999 edition). A 222 page directory with about 40 pages of information on gardens to visit. This information is less useful tha the trade directory which occupies the remainder of the book. Summary: not primarily a garden guide book.

Magazine Guides

The advantages of these guides is that they are cheaper and have more colour illustrations. The disadvantages are:

• they are really no more that collections of advertisements (approx £1,000 for a full-page advert and £400 for a quarter-page)
• a full-page entry indicates the depth of the owners’ pocket, not the quality of their garden. Many excellent gardens are excluded because the owners do not like advertising.
• owners write their own ‘copy’. This tends to be factually accurate but boastful and incomplete.
• details of gardens are mixed up with details of houses, castles and other ‘attractions’ which the owners' agents wish to advertise.
• in many cases, the two magazine guides have the same text and the same photographs
• both the guides are hard work for the user. One has to start with the map, then go to the index, then to the page reference, then back to the map and so on forever. One then finds that the place one thought of visiting either does not have a garden or it is closed on the day in question.
• the arrangement of gardens by county, or groups of counties in the case of Hudsons, is confusing. Motorists have little awareness of county boundaries.

Hudson’s Historic Houses and Gardens (£6.95 for 1999 edition)

Approx 400 glossy magazine-type pages, this is the more comprehensive of the two publications but the layout is seriously confused by the publishers wish to place the big-spenders adverts at the start of each county section. The only real ways of finding gardens are the map and the index (for which most over-40s will require spectacles)

Johansens Historic Houses Castles & Gardens (£4.99 for 1999 edition)

Approx 300 pages but a better graphic layout and a comprehensive system of symbols which provides information for those who take the trouble to learn what they mean. The index is much clearer than Hudsons and the guide is generally easier to use - but it has many less entries and is not really a good buy for garden visitors.

 Summary: Johansens has the better layout but Hudsons is the better buy, despite the higher price.