Avant-Gardening, A Guide to One-Upmanship in the Garden by Alan Titchmarsh, 1984

Avant-Gardening, A Guide to One-Upmanship in the Garden by Alan Titchmarsh.

If you thought gardening was a matter of pulling up weeds, mowing the lawn (you shouldn't call it a lawn anyway) and pruning the roses, let Alan Titchmarsh, renowned BBC gardening expert, put you right.  Your garden can reveal more about you than you think.

Now, with the first (tongue-in-cheek) comprehensive guide to social and horticultural acceptability in the garden, you can make sure that the plants you grow, the clothes you wear, the tools you use, your choice of garden furniture and ornaments, all proclaim you to be a leader in the hotly contested avant-gardening stakes.

Follow the explicit guidelines set out in this indispensable little manual - from name-dropping right through to making excuses - and learn how to steer clear of the pitfalls that will instantly brand your garden as infra dig rather than avant-garde.

This charmingly irreverent gardening gem by Titchmarsh is as delightful today as it was when first published in 1984.  Some things never change! 

Written by Alan Titchmarsh with drawings by Keith Ratling. Published by Souvenir Press, December 1984.  Hardcover with 127 pages, approximately 6 1/4" x 8 1/4".

From the final chapter entitled "Excuses":  "Showing visitors around your garden is both a pleasure and a nightmare.  It's fun to swank, but supposing they don't like it, or the flowers are just not up to it?  Arm yourself with a few suitable excuses, and you and your garden will come through with flags flying.  'We've only been here five years and we're really just waiting to see what comes up' or 'You should have been here last week.'"  Grab this lovely little British gardening book to read more!

The perfect gift for that special gardener in your life.