The Gardens of Wales

Documenting both visitor attractions and private gardens that are part of the National Garden Scheme from across Wales with wildly varying landscapes this really is an armchair treat!

All you need to know about gardens in the principality, written in the lucid, sober style of the prolific Helena Attlee.

Helena Attlee's The Gardens of Wales is the first book to bring a collection together between hard covers. She is a beguiling storyteller, and an eye for detail and historical accuracy make each of her chosen 27 gardens (beautifully photographed by her husband Alex Ramsay) irresistible.

This beautiful coffee table book includes great gardens to visit all over Wales. The pictures by Alex Ramsay are gorgeous and Helena Attlee's excellent text includes lots of information on the garden designers, history and planting. She is particularly interesting on all the hard work that has gone into restoring many of these gardens including one of fake rocks and grottoes, a Victoria fashion, that had been completely buried. A treat for active and armchair gardeners.

The lively text combines beautifully with the evocative photography of each site. If you're off to Wales on holiday, or previously visited some of the gardens featured then you'll find it a wonderful keepsake.

Helena Atlee tells the reader exactly the right amount about each place's history and qualities, while Alex Ramsay's sensitive photographs offer both general views and lovely details.

Books about famous gardens are legion but Wales has been a relatively neglected area until now. For this bbeautifully illustrated book, Helena Atlee visits some of the best known gardens in the Principality including Plas Newydd, with its gorgeous Humphry Repton-designed beech-framed views and Erdigg where the garden is largely unaltered in centuries. But there are smaller lesser-known delights including dewstow (with its eccentric grottoes) and Llowes with its leeks and horse pond!

Covers more than two dozen of the very best Welsh gardens… Each garden is written up succinctly, and there are fascinating photographs.