The unique style of the English garden is admired and copied all over the world. This book shows how the gardens of each period reflect the political, social and cultural life, how they affected architecture, clothes and manners, and how ideas and plants from other continents were embraced to form the art of English garden making. The contributions and personalities of individual men and women are analysed and celebrated. The author reveals how each period was influenced by a love or hate relationship with nature, alternatively keeping it at bay or taming it, manipulating, romanticising or celebrating it.