Previous editions of Science and the Garden have proved very popular with students of horticulture and professional and amateur gardeners wishing to know more about the plants and practices that are the everyday currency of gardening. We hope that this new edition will satisfy these audiences and encourage others to learn more about a branch of science that is endlessly fascinating and a vital adjunct to all good horticulture.
In the third edition we have added new chapters on Climate and other environmental changes (Chapter 15) and Health, well-being and socio-cultural benefits (Chapter 23). Many of the other chapters have been completely rewritten or extensively revised, often with new authors and/or illustrators, and the remainder have been carefully updated and re-edited. We have renamed several of the chapters and have also taken the opportunity to divide others or to move material from one chapter to another where we felt that this would improve the ability of the reader to comprehend a subject more easily.
With a large number of authors writing about an interrelated group of topics, some overlap between chapters is inevitable. We have done our best to keep this to a minimum, but not to such an extent that it will hinder the many users of the book who do not wish to read the chapters in sequence, but prefer to explore particular topics as and when it suits them, and for whom it is important that the individual chapters include sufficient background information to be read in isolation. Where we felt that a more complete understanding of a particular topic could be obtained by consulting other chapters, however, we have provided cross-references.
We are most grateful to the many authors and illustrators, mainly but not exclusively drawn from the Science Committee and staff of the Royal Horticultural Society, past and present, for their hard work and commitment to this project, and for responding promptly to the suggested changes to their initial manuscripts or illustrations. This has allowed the whole enterprise to reach fruition on time. We thank Nigel Balmforth, Kelvin Matthews and other staff at Wiley-Blackwell for their encouragement and professional help throughout the preparation of the new edition, Alison Ingram for indispensable editorial support and the staff of the Royal Horticultural Society for their continued and invaluable assistance and advice.
David S. Ingram (North Berwick)
Daphne Vince-Prue (Goring-on-Thames)
Peter J. Gregory (Emsworth)
March 2015