First published in 1971, this work provides a miscellany of ideas on many aspects of gardening - from designing and planting to paths and hedgerows, the winter garden and the wild garden, creating windbreaks and filling odd corners - as well as a host of suggestions for books to read and gardens to visit. An amateur gardener herself, Anne Scott-James writes of her own garden, created, she admits with too little time and money and virtually no professional help - full of shortcomings but nevertheless a constant source of pleasure. She also writes of a number of other gardens around Britain, for it is from these gardens that she has collected practical and original hints and ideas from their owner-gardeners.