A year in the life of one of the world's most famous gardens, combining special photography and historic illustrations with a lively text by a noted garden historian.

One of the largest private gardens in London, the Buckingham Palace garden occupies a unique place in the geographical context of London and in the social and constitutional history of Britain. Renowned garden historian Jane Brown presents the story of the garden from its beginnings as a seventeenth-century mulberry plantation frequented by Samuel Pepys to the role it plays today in the private and public life of the Royal Family.

The first royal event held in the Buckingham Palace garden was a surprise fireworks presentation for George III's birthday in 1763; in 2002, the Queen's Golden Jubilee concerts were staged on the lawn, with thousands of people in attendance and millions more watching on television. Drawing on previously unpublished material in the Royal Archives, the book uses maps, plans, paintings, and drawings to illustrate the garden's evolution, from formal plantation to eighteenth-century landscape, from Victorian shrubbery to the contemporary "walled oasis in the middle of London," with 350 species of wildflowers and an exceptional variety of bird and animal life.

Christopher Simon Sykes's photographs record a year in the life of the garden, from snowy winter mornings to springtime blossoms, from the extraordinary blaze of color achieved by the gardening staff for the summer parties to the autumn tints of its two hundred types of trees. Distributed on behalf of the Royal Collection. 250 illustrations, 200 in color.