The Best Gardening Books of All Time

I love books. I’m a bookish old biddy and absolutely have a little corner library in our living room … and stacks of books all over the place and shoved into various bags. And I especially love gardening books. Anytime I go to a book store or library sale or estate sale, I make it a point to check out the gardening books. I just can’t help myself.

While I don’t always keeps the books I find but there are several gardening books that comprise my dedicated collection. I deem these some of the best gardening books of all time. And you very may well too!

Gardening with Chickens

Gardening with Chickens by Lisa Steele is an absolute delight. It’s easy to read, incredibly informative and and absolute must have for gardeners with chickens. Besides the wealth of knowledge Steele offers in terms of plants, bugs, drying & preserving herbs and all things garden-chicken related, what I really love about this book are the garden plans. There are five of them in this book, each one with it’s own merits.

This book has long been in my home library and is definitely a mainstay I often refer back to when actively keeping chickens. You can purchase a paperback or Kindle edition here.

Sunset Garden Designs (Big Book of)

There is so much to love about Sunset Garden Designs (Big Book of). It contains more than 110 complete landscaping plans for a variety of garden spaces — from a huge backyard to a small porch container garden. There are garden designs for a variety of climates. And there are often plant substitutions listed to make adjustments for your climate zone.

The illustrations are beautiful and the vast majority of designs include well-drawn out layout plans and plant quantities. There’s solutions for backyards and front yards as well as dry and wet areas. There’s perennial gardens, vegetable and herb gards — really the works!

I’ve had this book for years as well (and other variations of it) and used several of the designs exactly on our various homesteads. I’ve also used some of them loosely for variations or to inspire my own garden designs. It really is a lovely book and an excellent garden design resource. You can purchase a copy here.

The Complete Kitchen Garden

If you know me at all, you know I’m a huge believer in foodscaping and edible landscaping. And, as any homesteader can tell you, a kitchen garden is absolutely essential to even the smallest homestead. This is why I love The Complete Kitchen Garden by Ellen Ecker Ogden.

This beautiful book not only contains a bevy of kitchen garden designs but also recipes directly related to the foods grown in the various garden designs. Bonus! There are beautiful hand-painted watercolor illustrations of the gardens as well as photos of the real gardens in action. There are several different options to choose from in the book including a children’s garden, organic rotation garden and salad lover’s garden. I used The Cook’s Garden design at our Maple Hill homestead and it looked so enchanting.

You can purchase a paperback or Kindle edition here.

The Backyard Homestead

Even if you don’t have ton of acreage, backyard homesteading is still absolutely achievable on a small scale. The Backyard Homestead edited by Carleen Madigan helps you with your homestead design and journey with backyards under half an acre particularly in mind.

Beyond some simple layouts and design plans for 1/10, 1/4 and 1/2 acres there are excellent instructions (with illustrations!) on how to do all sorts of essential homesteading activities from seed starting to preserving the harvest. There are even recipes (I love a garden book with recipes, can you tell?), yield estimations based on plantings, and explanations of various plant and animal breeds.

I think this is a wonderfully easy book to follow and understand, especially for those just starting out with homesteading. The Backyard Homestead truly is an excellent how-to guide and reference book for those looking to get into small scale homesteading and living a sustainable life by growing your own food. You can purchase multiple variations of the book including paperback, Kindle, and School and Library binding here.

Betty Crocker’s Kitchen Gardens

This next gardening book is a rare treasure and one I consider myself VERY lucky to have a copy. Betty Crocker’s Kitchen Gardens is a vintage book that is beautifully illustrated by the legendary Tasha Tudor.

While you can purchase a copy online here, it is quite expensive as it is truly a rare find book. I suggest checking library book sales, estate sales, garage sales, and secondhand bookstores for a copy if you don’t mind or like the thrill of a book hunt. I’m incredibly lucky to have my mother give me this book and I would never part with it for the world.

The book contains information on a variety of vegetables and herbs as well as recipes and practical preserving instructions. And, again, the illustrations by Tasha Tudor are just beautiful.

The Cottage Garden

If you love heirloom and vintage gardening, or the style of a cottage garden, or homesteading; then The Cottage Garden is a definite asset to your gardening library. This book by Christopher Lloyd with Richard Bird is filled to the brim with beautiful photos, sketches and drawings. And that’s just the beginning. There are also gardens plants, advice on plant selection, seasonal tasks, and the added bonus of recipes.

What I truly enjoy most about Lloyd’s book is his practical and historical approach to cottage gardens. Many people think a cottage garden is just all about pretty flowers. While that is certainly part of their charm, that’s not their only focus. A true cottage garden incorporates practical and purposeful elements like a vegetable patch and fruit trees, perhaps even livestock like chickens and ducks.

The Cottage Garden truly is a joy to read. I regularly refer back to it for information, inspiration and even just the enjoyment of looking at the beautiful pictures and art. It’s available here in both hardcover and paperback.

The Perennial Gardener’s Design Primer

The Perennial Gardener’s Design Primer by Stephanie Cohen and Nancy J. Ondra isn’t just a book of garden designs — though it certainly is filled with many beautiful garden designs. It’s also a handy introduction and reference book on how to work with your garden site (is it sunny, shady, windy?), work with a color palette, and layer plants in a garden bed. The Design Primer demystifies all these garden design elements in an easy to understand way and helps you feel like a pro.

In addition, there’s discussions on flower head and leaf types and walks you through how to combine those in a garden design. And the book doesn’t stop at perennials. There’s also information on how to work with annuals, bulbs, trees, shrubs and grasses. Truly, this book helped me feel less intimidated about the whole design process when I first started really getting into gardening 20 years ago. This book was brand spanking new then but it absolutely withstands the test of time and is a classic book that any new to intermediate gardener can use and appreciate.

Besides the instruction and reference sections, there are stellar garden designs. And what I really appreciate in the individual design breakdowns, is the plant list that details what each plant is and alternative options (in case something doesn’t work with your zone or preferences). I used the “Making the Grade” design from this book for a slope at our previous home, Maple Hill Cottage. It worked beautifully.

The Design Primer is definitely a mainstay in my gardening library and I often refer back to it for design inspiration and plant information. You can purchase it here.

In Conclusion

These are the books I’ve kept on hand for years, even decades in some cases. Have I missed any must-haves? What are your favorite gardening books of all time? Let me know in the comments?

Want to see what I’ve got in the works in my own gardens this year? Check out my blog post here. Love gardening? You may also enjoy my other posts in my Garden section.