For Rebecca Bushnell, English gardening books tell a fascinating tale of the human love for plants and our will to make them do as we wish. These books powerful

Radical reconfigurations in gardening practice in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England altered the social function of the garden, offering men and women n

The people and publications at the root of a national obsession

In seventeenth-century Britain, a new breed of 'curious' gardeners were pushing at the frontiers of knowledge and new plants were stealing into Europe from East

From Flora, Roman goddess of plants, to today's gardeners at Kew, women have always gardened. Women gardeners have grown vegetables for their kitchens and herbs