Deborah Kellaway, gardening columnist
 An idiosyncratic gardening book, From the Ends of the Earth (Bene Factum Publishing, 2004) by Christian Lamb, took my fancy this year. It would not take the fancy of mainline publishers, as it falls into no received category, being a mixture of her own gardening experience and anecdotes of plant hunters. She is obsessional, knowledgeable and persuasive, but also self-mocking. She goes to a dinner party at a house on a Cornish beach and covets its seaweed for her compost heap: 'The slippery, bulky stuff was much heavier than I expected, and all the dinner guests had to come in their finery and help me drag it up the shore.' Her happy energy drives the book, and her own colour photographs illuminate it.