Plants - 5 Book Bundle

Herbarium: One Hundred Herbs · Grow · Cook · Heal by Caz Hildebrand - Published: Thames and Hudson Ltd - 2023-03-09 - 224 pages.

A stylishly illustrated compendium of 100 herbs, designed to enrich our understanding of all their uses.

This isn’t just a book for the kitchen – it’s for the greenhouse, the medicine cabinet, the coffee table...

Award-winning designer Caz Hildebrand’s Herbarium is a 21st-century reboot of the traditional herbal compendium. The visual genius behind the international bestseller The Geometry of Pasta, she has created abstract forms and vibrant colours to illustrate 100 essential herbs and to reveal their hidden properties.

From bergamot, comfrey and dill to sassafras, vervain and wasabi, all types of herbs are covered; each is explained through the fascinating history of their uses and symbolism. There are tips on how to use them as seasonings and how to create healing potions, as well as advice on when and how to grow them.

Herbarium celebrates all facets of herbs and all their life-enhancing properties.

Remarkable Plants by Helen Bynum and William Bynum - Published: Thames and Hudson Ltd - 2023-07-06 - 240 pages.

A glorious celebration of the beauty, diversity, importance and sheer wonder of plants, with exquisite illustrations from the collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Plants feed us, clothe us, shelter us, help transport us, and can both intoxicate and cure us. From food staples to exotic and enchanting flowers, plants are essential for the wellbeing of our selves and our planet.

Helen and William Bynum are expert guides to the intriguing histories and uses of over 80 key plants. Rich in cultural, historical, botanical and symbolic associations, the plants, from every corner of the globe – both familiar and bizarre – have fascinating stories to tell. Starting with foods that laid the foundations for the development of civilizations, such as wheat, rice and maize, and those that enliven our diet, such as saffron and spices, sections look at plants that have helped to create our material world, including bamboo and the oak, and crops that have made people rich, such as tea, coffee and sugar cane. Many plants have been used medicinally and others, for instance eucalyptus or giant redwoods, have come to epitomize entire landscapes. Some are the objects of obsession, including the tulip, the rose and the lotus, and some are distinctly strange, such as the world’s largest flower, rafflesia, which smells of rotting flesh!

For anyone interested in the extraordinary beauty and diversity of flora around us, this stunning book, illustrated with botanical drawings, paintings and artworks will be an inspiration and a delight.

The Preserving Garden: Bottle, pickle, ferment and cook homegrown food all year round by Jo Turner and Ashlea O'Neill - Published: Thames & Hudson Australia - 2023-07-20 - 208 pages.

Grow your garden to fill your pantry with bottled fruit, fermented vegetables and over 40 sorts of preserved and dried home-grown food.

The Preserving Garden is a stylishly illustrated guide to creating a garden that will provide food all year round. Featuring over 40 plant profiles with growing notes for starting or improving your garden, you will learn how to make a vegetable patch or small orchard in any space – including where to begin, when to plant and how to care for your garden.

The book includes scalable, easy-to-follow recipes and techniques for chutneys, relishes, jams, jellies, marmalades, bottling and drying. Make the most of your home-grown produce throughout the year by pureeing tomatoes for sauces, fermenting your cabbage for sauerkraut, drying your cherries to use in muffins and much more.

When you are using fruit or vegetables grown in your own yard or allotment (or simply in pots) you are reducing food miles, waste, plastic use and reclaiming control over what goes into the food you eat – all very contemporary concerns addressed by long-established practices.

Offering a joyful reinterpretation of cookery illustration, this book is an inspiring and practical gift for the food enthusiast, whatever their local growing conditions.

Edible: 70 Sustainable Plants That Are Changing How We Eat by Kevin Hobbs and Artur Cisar-Erlach - Published: Thames and Hudson Ltd - 2023-09-21 - 208 pages.

An illustrated celebration of sustainable and often little-known edible plants from around the world that are revolutionizing how we grow, eat and appreciate food.

Plants that can thrive under the most challenging of conditions are becoming ever more important in ensuring food security in our changing climate. This book takes the reader on a visual journey, exploring edible plants from around the world, from the more familiar to the lesser known. Richly illustrated, each plant profile gives fascinating insights into relevant growing conditions and flavour profiles, as well as helpful tips for growing, cooking and eating.

Many of the world’s edible plants have been cultivated by humankind over thousands of years and yet more than half of our diet is made up of just three: wheat, maize and rice. There are many thousands more we can make use of to create a more sustainable food future. Offering the reader an extraordinary peek into the tasty world of plants, Edible explores fascinating plants from every continent, including grains and vegetables alongside quirky local staples, from the little-known spice grains of paradise to the dandelion and Irish moss. Highlighting common ways each plant is cooked and eaten, each plant profile provides vital information on climatic and growing conditions, nutrition, flavour and even unexpected medicinal properties. With a directory of places to find and purchase featured plants and accompanying resources at the end of the book, this visually appealing compendium offers both a deeper appreciation and understanding of the huge diversity of edible plants and a rich source of inspiration for readers to discover, try and grow new food for themselves.

Botanical Sketchbooks by Helen Bynum and William Bynum - Published: Thames and Hudson Ltd - 2023-08-17 - 296 pages.

A visual compendium of botanical sketches, many specially photographed, providing a revealing insight into the immediate responses of artists encountering the glories of the plant world.

While highly finished drawings and paintings frequently feature in histories of botanical art, the preparatory sketches, first impressions and creative thoughts on paper behind them are rarely seen and have often remained hidden and locked away.

Botanical Sketchbooks brings these personal and vividly spontaneous records gloriously back into the light. In a series of biographical portraits organized thematically into four sections, the book illuminates a range of intriguing characters, from many different countries and cultures, including Germany, France, Italy, America, Australia, Japan and China. Sketchbooks proper are joined by notebooks, journals, albums, loose pieces of paper, works on vellum, manuscripts, letters, herbarium sheets and marginalia – even one drawing on the back of an envelope.

Turning the pages of this book will be an invitation to relive extraordinary experiences, imagine lost worlds, and be immersed in the endeavours, observations and motivations of the makers of such beautiful and enchanting art.