The "Modern Library Gardening Series" is an American gem of a find - reprints of gardening classics written and published long before today's flurry of overly bright garden books. These are true garden works, not just a photographic procession of perfect plants. Here, you'll find excitement, love, commitment and die-hard horticulturalists imparting their knowledge and experience in a way that makes learning enjoyable. From playwright Reginald Arkell's "Old Herbaceous" hilarious novel to Frank Kingdon Ward's diaries of daring-do in the Far East, American Eleanor Perenyi's pert comments and asides to Margery Fish's late-found desire to build a garden of her dreams in Devon, the passion and ardour with which these writers embrace the subject is sorely missed today. Margery Fish's garden at East Lambrook, Somerset, have long been a Mecca for garden lovers across the globe. Typifying all that's best of English country gardens, it is the design and determination of this classic garden writer to create something special and everlasting that has made her renowned throughout the horticultural world. "We Made a Garden" was first published in 1956 and has enjoyed cult status over the last few years as the epitome of gardening writing - intelligent, informative and at times hilarious. Her battles with nature, farm animals and even her husband, are imparted in a literary form readable by active or armchair gardeners alike. It is a treat to read and should be read by all gardeners who want to create something more permanent than the transient beddings displays so often seen today. - Lucy Watson

Margery Fish was one of Britain's leading gardeners. Named a classic gardening writer by the Royal Horticultural Society, she published six other gardening books and was a regular contributor to the British periodicals "Amateur Gardening" and "The Field." Many thousands of visitors come each year to East Lambrook Manor, her Somerset garden. Michael Pollan is the author of the "New York Times "bestseller" The Botany of Desire" and "Second Nature," named one of the best gardening books of the twentieth century by the American Horticultural Society. He is a contributing editor to Harper's magazine and a contributing writer at "The New York Times Magazine." Pollan chose the books for the Modern Library Gardening series because, as he writes, "these writers are some of the great talkers in the rich, provocative, and frequently uproarious conversation that, metaphorically at least, has been taking place over the back fence of our gardens at least since the time of Pliny."