14 Designer-Approved Flower and Garden Books to Add to Your Library

"Amy Merrick's book, On Flowers, offers a delightful mixture of her views on flowers and gardens with some really excellent images woven throughout. The book feels so personal, almost like a meditation. It's really all about the joy that flowers bring, which resonates a lot with my own approach to our colorful friends." —Mally Skok

"Hot off the press, Charlotte Moss's latest tome is my favorite book on flowers. Charlotte’s combinations of materials and color, objects and scale, are masterful, making this book a dreamy source of inspiration. The way she mixes elements with creative abandon, whether it’s a few garden clippings or a large and lavish arrangement, is breathtaking. Not only is this a book brimming with creativity, it also features floral history lessons as Charlotte delves into the inspiring styles of past tastemakers such as Bunny Mellon, Constance Spry, Gloria Vanderbilt, Pauline de Rothschild and others." –Suzanne Tucker

"Piet Oudolf is a Dutch garden and landscape designer who designed the plantings for the High Line in New York City. His work inspired the plantings in my own Brooklyn roof garden to be urban, wild, natural, and modern." —Laurie Blumenfeld-Russo

"When I'm planning for a party or a photoshoot, I crack this book open for color inspiration. It's full of vibrant color stories and beautiful garden and floral imagery.  I love that she weaves tablescapes and her botanical paintings throughout the book as well. It's a feast for the eyes!" —Josh Pickering

"Balthazar Korab’s photographs of the magnificent gardens at the Villa Gamberaia in the hills just east of Florence is a revelation. Shot mostly in winter and—more unexpectedly—almost completely in black and white, Korab captured the sober precision  and the sheer poetry of this staggeringly beautiful garden." —Jeffry Weisman

"I love Frances Palmer’s new book, Life in the Studio. While it is not exactly a flower book, it expresses a great deal of love for flowers and cultivating them. Her section on how to grow and care for dahlias is essential for dahlia-lovers like me!" —Young Huh

"I discovered Willow Crossley on Instagram during the pandemic when things were pretty shut down. I fell in love with her British wit and her playful approach to flower arranging. I learned from her not to take my flower arrangements too seriously and how to be creative with indoor gardening." —Gray Walker 

"In Madison Cox's Private Gardens of Paris, Madison has documented an ephemeral world that is not only changing every day, but disappearing. This book includes some of the most splendid gardens, and I love the access it provides to private places you may never get to see." —Stewart Magner

"Christopher Spitzmiller’s new book is a like a love letter to sustainable country living.  It’s how we all secretly yearn to live —raising chickens, plantings beds of beautiful flowers to bloom throughout the season, tending to bees and setting a beautiful table for treasured friends and family to gather around." —Cathy Kincaid

"I love how poetic Luciano Giubbilei's gardens are and how in line his aesthetic is to ours when it comes to interior design. He is creating art out of living plant material, and each project in this book is better than the last. The plantings are at once simple yet so deliberately and carefully placed in the gardens. It reinforces that simplicity and elegance always rule the day. I’ve also decided I’d like to work on a project that incorporate domes of grass one day. They are unbelievably chic and confident." —Jean Liu

"I love everything about Bouquets d'Artistes. The arrangements are loose and free, some inspired by art, others by their containers. The whole book suggests the endless possibilities of combinations." —Charlotte Moss

"As a designer, I fully appreciate the photographs in the book Royal Gardens of the World followed by a garden plan. It’s one thing to see a garden from a view, but an entirely different thing to be able to see the thoughtful structure that holds the plantings. The book also features a variety of garden types across many different countries, which I find so wonderful in a world of globalization. Having a love affair with Japanese culture and beauty, I especially love the insight into organic and respectful gardening practices under Emperor Hirohito in the 1900s. It must have been so groundbreaking then and now, 100 years later, it's all the rage!" —Sara Hillery

"I have many favorites! Flowers by Carolyne Roehm, Charlotte Moss Flowers, Charlotte Moss: Garden Inspirations, The Gardens of Bunny Mellon, Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes, and, of course, Veranda: The Romance of Flowers by Clint Smith. They each capture the whimsy, elegance, and romance of flowers. I spend my summers working from my studio in Northeast Harbor, Maine, and I have filled my shelves with these books. There is always something new to learn or admire across their pages." —Melanie Millner