ANYONE looking for the Christmas gift that really can’t go wrong? How about a gardening book?

I have listed here three new books that, even on a rainy day, the recipient can sit inside and still enjoy gardening.

1. IN “The House and Garden at Glenmore” (Murdoch Books, $59.99) interior designer Mickey Robertson tells the story of her and husband Larry’s restoration of a collection of dilapidated colonial farm buildings near Camden with an equally non-existent garden. This is a perfect example of what can be done with old buildings in turning them into a beautiful home and ornamental garden. Throughout this profusely illustrated book are garden hints galore and 30 seasonal recipes from their kitchen garden.
2. MICHAEL Cooke is a long-established landscape designer in Australia and overseas who, in conjunction with garden and architecture photographer Brigid Arnott, has written the intriguingly titled “Disobedient Gardens” (Murdoch Books, $59.99). This is an ideal combination of talent that features five interesting gardens created by Cooke with superb photography by Arnott. His gardens feature an element of wildness combined with a degree of order. Combined with a sense of order there is as described by Cooke a degree of disobedience which makes them all the more interesting.
3. CHARLOTTE Hedeman Gueniau, together with her French husband Phillipe, wanted a change after living in Paris for 15 years. They moved to Denmark and founded an ethical homewares empire in an old shipyard building. With the company name Rice and 70 employees, they produce homeware collections that are ethically sourced and produced all over the world. Her book, “Happy Home Outside – Everyday Magic for Outdoor Life” (Murdoch Books, $49.95), provides a wealth of ideas for outdoor living from garden seats, original table decorations, fabric canopies and amazing lighting solutions. All perfect inspiration for our Australian outdoor way of life.

• Arrange for someone to check on the watering system if it is automatic. These can go wrong and you don’t want to arrive home to a flooded garden.
• Potted plants are the biggest problem and need to be watered every few days.
• Arrange for the mail to be collected, especially overflowing letterboxes with catalogues, and papers up picked from the lawn – a dead giveaway that no-one’s home.

THIS is my final garden column this year, so to all my readers a big thank you for all your emails and letters over the last 12 months. Other than watering, my advice is to take the holidays and forget about any hard work in the garden.