Beth Chatto's Green Tapestry: Perennial Plants for Your ... (ISBN 0004140648)

Excellent Idea book for experienced gardeners:
Unlike many gardening books, this book assumes a solid knowledge of gardening and has chapters on various types of gardens(shade, dry, open walks etc.). I appreciate that that many of the plants are less well-known, making the AHS Encyclopedia a good book to keep nearby while you read this. Has some great ideas for both plant and design choices.

A masterful description of one woman's garden:
This book has a similar philosophy and arrangement by cultural conditions as Penelope Hobhouse's Natural Planting. While Hobhouse looks to gardens around the (temperate, Western) world, this book is all based on Beth Chatto's garden. But that's enough, as these are the large and varied display gardens at her retail and commercial nursery. The gardens are set in Essex, an area of England with harsher conditions (drier year-round, with a cold winter) than most of the country, and thus more like that of much of North America. While the book doesn't have a big alphabetical plant reference in the back, Chatto does have a few pages on each of many of her favorite genera. All of Chatto's books are worth purchasing if they match your local conditions (e.g., The Damp Garden, The Dry Garden). http://www.woodedpaths.blogspot.com/