Get out in your garden and discover the history hidden in the hedges.

Did the Romans have rakes?
Did the monks get muddy?
Did potatoes seem really, really weird when they arrived on our shores?

Drawn from Jenny Uglow's own love for plants, this lively 'potted' history of gardening in Britain takes us on a garden tour from the thorn hedges around prehistoric settlements to the rage for ornamental grasses and 'outdoor rooms' today.

Tracking down the ordinary folk who worked the earth - from weeding women to florists - as well as aristocrats and grand designers and famous plant-hunters, A Little History of British Gardening is brought to life by gorgeously vivid illustrations and Uglow's insightful wisdom.

Not only dealing with flowery meads, grottoes and vistas, landscapes and ha-has, parks and allotments, Uglow explains, for example, how the Tudors made their curious knots; how housewives used herbs to stop freckles; how the suburbs dug for victory in World War II.

With a brief guide to particular historic or evocative gardens open to the public, this is a book to put in your pocket when planning a crisp, winter's day out - but also to read in your armchair with a well-earned glass of red, after a hard day's graft in your own garden.

'Enchanting, stirringly evocative and fascinating' Daily Mail

'This book will be a joy for any gardener' Independent

Jenny Uglow writes on literature, art, and social history. Her books include award-winning biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell, William Hogarth and Thomas Bewick, as well as a study of Sarah Losh, a surprising Victorian architect and visionary,and group studies including The Lunar Men and the panoramic In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815. She is now writing on Edward Lear. Jenny lives in Canterbury, and has four grown up children and seven grandchildren. She was created an OBE in 2008, and was Chair of the Royal Society of Literature 2014-2016.