The Morville Hours, a richly illustrated horological meditation and horticultural manual, described the inception and growth of a garden at the Dower House at Morville in Shropshire. Now Katherine Swift, an admired gardening writer, looks back over 20 years and more of the garden and her gardening life in columns written from December 2001 to July 2005 for The Times. A major theme was what she calls “close looking”, seizing the moment, day by day, season by season, to understand plants at all stages of their growth. Her prose is not always plain, but neither is it flowery: she relishes vitality in words as much as in plants.
The Morville Year by Katherine Swift, Bloomsbury, 316pp, £18.99. To buy this book for £17.09 visit thetimes.co.uk/bookshop or call 0845 2712134