"The Management and Maintenance of Historic Parks, Gardens and Landscapes - The English Heritage Handbook" is the rather unwieldy title of what is in fact an excellent in-depth manual.
Published by Frances Lincoln, it is described as a "new reference book...for all those professionals, agents, owners, designers and managers concerned with the many aspects of managing historic gardens, parks and design landscapes. The comprehensive scope emphasizes the importance of the principles of management, and the historic, scientific, botanical, horticultural, economic, legal and technical aspects essential for success. There is no up-to-date book on the subject; the last one was written in 1982."
Well BGCI's Darwin Technical Manual is of course an option for gardens in particular, but even that is now nearly ten years old.
"The Management and Maintenance..." looks gorgeous, is very detailed and rich with information, and is easy to navigate. It has three parts, the third of which is a series of ten case studies.
A lot of this book will be relevant to botanic gardens managers, particularly the sections on "Managing historic parks and gardens" and Part Two: "The Living Garden Landscape".
The emphasis however, is very much upon the British scenario with chapters on topics such as "The Legal Framework" which I doubt will have much relevance outside the UK or even for botanic gardens within the UK.
Take a look for yourself on Amazon. If you buy it (or anything else on Amazon) from this link BGCI will benefit.
Nevertheless I am sure it would be a very welcome addition to the sparsely inhabited shelf of a botanic garden management bookcase. I guess we just need Frances Lincoln to commission another book like this, specifically for the world's botanic gardens, and the shelf will be complete!
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