Holiday Gift Guide: The 10 Best Garden Books to Give This Year

It was a great year for garden (and garden-adjacent) books with dozens of titles that caught our attention in 2024. The task of narrowing down a list of our favorite books to give as gifts was daunting. We were mindful to select ones that would appeal to both novice and experienced gardeners across a range of growing zones. But our main criteria? The titles had to be not only useful and interesting, but also beautiful to peruse and hold—the kind of books that would look perfectly at home displayed on a coffee table. Some are so pretty you could skip the wrapping paper and just dress them up with a bow. 

Life in the Garden by Bunny Williams

Interior designer Bunny Williams’ Connecticut garden is a place of pilgrimage for gardeners in the Northeast (Williams generously opens her property for tours every year). If you can’t make it there in person, this book is the next best thing with gorgeous photos documenting the parterre, conservatory, vegetable garden, orchard, woodlands, Greek Revival folly, and the prettiest chicken coop we’ve ever seen. For the Bunny Williams super fan, consider the Graphic Image keepsake edition bound in bonded leather.

Beyond the Meadows: Portrait of a Natural and Biodiverse Garden by Krautkopf

If you’ve ever entertained the idea of heading to the country and becoming a homesteader, this is the book for you. Dripping with beautiful images shot by its authors, a pair of professional photographers who relocated from Berlin to a small village with dreams of becoming more self-sufficient, Beyond the Meadows is an honest, detailed, and, ultimately, inspiring record of their experience. (See Required Reading: ‘Beyond the Meadows: Portrait of a Natural and Biodiverse Garden by Krautkop‘ for our review.)

Outside In: A Year of Growing and Displaying by Sean A. Pritchard

British garden designer Sean A. Pritchard is one of our favorite accounts to follow on Instagram (@sean_anthony_pritchard), where he shares images of his charming cottage and exuberant flower arrangements. So it should come as no surprise that his book is on our wishlist this year. The book tells you what and when to plant for year-round blooms, but we’ll confess we’re in it just to ogle the gorgeous photos of his bouquets and forced bulbs. 

Pastoral Gardens by Clare Foster

Clare Foster, the garden editor at House & Garden magazine, explores the lines between cultivated and wild landscapes in her gorgeous new book Pastoral Gardens. Foster and photographer Andrew Montgomery document 20 gardens inspired by wild landscapes. The book also includes essays by garden luminaries Jinny Blom, Nigel Dunnett, Kim Wilkie, and Tom Stuart-Smith, who explore garden design in the face of climate change. U.S. gardeners will have to wait for stateside bookstore distribution, but in the meantime, the book can be ordered directly from Montgomery Press. 

The Food Forward Garden by Christian Douglas

This year brought several titles that showcased beautiful, edible landscapes, chief among them: The Food Forward Garden. From a small city backyard bordered with raised beds to chef Tyler Florence’s elaborate, terraced kitchen garden, Christian Douglas shows us the wide range of what he calls “food forward” gardens, in which the food is brought forward rather than being hidden away in a back vegetable patch. The vegetable garden never looked so good. (See Required Reading: ‘The Food Forward Garden’; A Manual on How to Have Your Beautiful Yard—And Eat It Too for our review.)

Shrouded in Light by Kevin Philip Williams and Michael Guidi

Perennial meadows and prairies have inspired garden designers in recent decades, but authors Kevin Philip Williams and Michael Guidi make a persuasive case that it’s shrubs turn to be in the spotlight. Naturalistic-leaning gardeners will find much inspiration in the dozen wild shrublands that Williams and Guidi break down for readers to mimic. (For more on the book, see At Last: Show Time for Shrubs.)

A Year in Bloom: Flowering Bulbs for Gardeners by Lucy Bellamy

In A Year in Bloom, garden writer Lucy Bellamy asks some of the world’s top garden pros to dish about their favorite bulbs. In total Bellamy cataloged 150 bulbs, which are described in detailed text and beautiful images by Jason Ingram. The lemon-yellow cover makes it an especially cheerful gift. (See Ask the Experts: The Best Bulbs to Naturalize in Spring for more about the book.)

Outside In: Thoughtful Interiors Inspired by the Natural World by Lauren Camilleri and Sophia Kaplan

Not to be confused with Pritchard’s book, this other Outside In is an interiors book where the gardens feature as heavily as the modern homes. These indoor-outdoor blurring interiors are something of a specialty for the authors, whose previous books are Plantopedia, Indoor Jungle, and Leaf Supply.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

Many gardeners are also bird-lovers–and even if they’re not yet, this book might inspire them to become one. In 2016 overwhelmed by the state of the world, author Amy Tan began observing the birds in her backyard through both words and sketches. The Backyard Bird Chronicles is the beautiful result of those observations and a peaceful retreat at another overwhelming moment in history.

Garden Wonderland by Leslie Bennett and Julie Chai

Like Douglas, Leslie Bennett and her Bay Area landscape design firm Pine House Edible Gardens are known for their edible landscapes, but Garden Wonderland is more than just a book about gardens for growing food. Broken into five types of wonderland: edible, floral, healing, gathering, and cultural, the book features Bennett’s clients and their personal stories alongside their gardens. (For more on the book, see ‘Garden Wonderland’: Leslie Bennett’s New Book Shares the Secrets to Designing a Magical Garden.)

Last, if you’re looking for a great stocking stuffer, may we recommend The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer? The slim, postcard-sized volume, by the author of the wildly-popular Braiding Sweetgrass, is an extended essay on Amelanchier’s relationship with the natural world as an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. 

• For all of our gift guides this holiday season, go here.
• And for Remodelista’s gift guides, head here.