Elspeth Thompson has been delighting readers of the Sunday Telegraph Magazine since 1996 with her weekly column Urban Gardener. The transformation of her miniscule town garden has been acclaimed in gardening magazines and journals alike, opening to the public under the National Gardens Scheme on an annual basis. Her acquisition with friends of a couple of allotments taught her the rudiments of fruit and vegetable production ensuring that when she was lucky enough to acquire a weekend house in the country, she was well-primed for the trials and tribulations that would ensue. This is a collection of Urban Gardener gems, wittily written, covering topics as diverse as slug control and aloes, auriculas and onions, town gardens and rural gardening, US gardening, window box gardening and more. Elspeth offers an informative and entertaining read, well-known to Telegraph readers and a rare treat for those uninitiated in her horticultural charms. - Lucy Watson
