Stop using peat from important wildlife sites [how are we to tell?] .. Use materials from renewable sources ... Avoid plastic if there are natural alternatives available."He even wants to poke his ponytail into our kitchens: "Avoid processed and altered foods, especially hydrogenated oils and trans-fats, preservatives, ersatz meats and genetically modified ingredients ... Stop using aluminium or non-stick surfaces." If you can take the hectoring tone, the book contains a lot of sound advice and is sure to be popular with Flowerdew's many admirers. There is one sentence in his introduction, though, that I simply do not believe: "I have found it possible to make any plot into a paradise within a short time without much hard work."Stephen Anderton, another familiar face from TV, takes a more level-headed approach. In Rejuvenating a Garden (Kyle Cathie, pounds 19.99), he warns us that neglected gardens are hard to handle and often need emergency injections of time, energy and money.

For anyone about to undertake a reclamation or restoration project of their own, this book is a must-have. As you would expect from a former National Gardens Manager for English Heritage, Anderton dispenses sound advice backed up by revealing pictures, especially when he tackles the perennial mysteries of pruning. If anyone can claim to be the Delia Smith of gardening, it is he.Publishers love to commission books about small gardens, reasoning that these are what most of us possess and that there will a correspondingly wide market. Sue Fisher's Essential Plants for Small Gardens (Ward Lock, pounds 19.99), although a thorough and methodical work, differs little from scores of others on this subject.Herbs are another popular topic - most gardeners grow a few - and Barbara Segall's Ultimate Herb Gardener (Ward Lock, pounds 20) is one of the most comprehensive accounts of how, where and why to cultivate them, with a little history tossed in for some added flavour.

The author stresses that herbs are not simply for the kitchen, but provide a multi-sensory experience: "There are visual pleasures, as well as edible, tactile and aromatic ones."Much of the book is taken up with designs for different types of herb gardens, devised and drawn by Gisela Mirwis. There are sections on edible flowers, on pot pourri, on growing herbs in the (currently fashionable) Mediterranean-style and on wildflower gardens. I was alarmed, though, by a note at the start: "The author and publishers can accept no responsibility for any harm, illness or damage arising from the use of the plants described in this book."Claude Monet and William Morris were not known primarily as gardeners, but plants and gardens were vital components of their art. Monet's Water Lilies by Vivian Russell (Frances Lincoln, pounds 14.99) and The Gardens of William Morris by Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, Penny Hart and John Simmons (Frances Lincoln, pounds 25) fall into a category midway between gardening and art books. "Painting and gardening were conduits for Monet's passion for beauty, which flowed through him like an electric current," writes Russell, with characteristic hyperbole. She has certainly done her homework on the horticultural aspects of Monet's life, and her excellent photographs greatly enhance this slim volume.As the authors of the William Morris book point out - somewhat defensively - Morris never wrote a treatise on gardening, nor was he a professional garden designer.