Blooming marvellous: the year’s best gardening books
I am an absolute sucker for a handsome reproduction of a rare and highly illustrated natural history, preferably more than two centuries old. This may possibly be a niche interest, but Catesby’s Natural History was pronounced a wonder when it was first published and is a wonder still. Mark Catesby was ‘a procurer of plants’, sponsored by a group of rich, curious patrons, including William Sherard and Sir Hans Sloane, to explore and record the flora and fauna of the most southern of the Thirteen Colonies – the Carolinas and Florida, as well as the Bahamas Islands. He made several perilous trips in the 1720s, sketching his subjects live, and
