The Bold and Brilliant Garden is a stunningly beautiful book, crammed full of inspired ideas with glorious photography by Jon athan Buckley.Sarah Raven knows her plants and has a sure instinct for drama and daring. This is no-holds- barred gardening at its most exhilarating--few other gardeners would risk bright pink hyacinths amongst burnt orange wallflowers, punctuated by young rhubarb shoots, newly liberated from their forcing pots, in shades of pink and yellow; or suggest enhancing the effect of the almost black tulip Queen of the Night by scattering the gold and scarlet slashed Mickey Mouse amongst them. Her work as a flower grower and florist ensures that she has sought out the best varieties and many unusual colour variations.

One of the great strengths of this book is that although the brilliant flowers are undoubtedly the stars, the supporting cast is not neglected--foliage is used throughout as a backdrop, for structure and as a foil for the vivid colours of the flowers. Sarah Raven admits that her type of gardening is labour intensive, but at a time when too much gardening attempts to be "instant" it is refreshing to read a book which honestly states that effort is required to achieve stunning results. --Stephanie Donaldson

2007-01-13 Bold and Borrowed

a good gardening book but somewhat misleading, in the small print it tells you that the plants and arrangements are not actually in Sarah Ravens own garden. I find this quite dissapointing.