DK's relationship with the RHS

Dorling Kindersley has been creating books with the Royal Horticultural Society for nearly twenty years. The first headword list of plants that developed into the first edition of The RHS Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers was typed on a bulky Royal typewriter in offices that overlooked Covent Garden market. I know because I helped do it!

We have made some progress since then. Five major encyclopedias [one of which is the Desert Island Discs book of choice for the Editor of the Daily Mail no less!], eight best-in-class manuals, nine handbooks, three mini-encyclopedias, two best-selling annuals and twenty-six practical guides make a list that we are enormously proud of.

All the encyclopedias and many of the manuals, such as RHS Pruning and Training and RHS Propagation are publishing institutions in their own right and are subject to regular revision.

It's a list that sells many hundreds of thousands of copies in the UK, where the RHS is clearly the best-selling brand in gardening books, but then stretches out to North America and Canada, to Australia and New Zealand, and on to a grand total of 15 foreign markets in 14 languages. The RHS Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers and The RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening are just finding their way into the hands of Chinese gardeners after four years of translation.

In the same way that people trust their doctor for healthcare so gardeners turn to the authority of the Royal Horticultural Society when it comes to looking after their garden plants and flowers. The highest-quality information is expected. Since providing the highest quality illustrated reference is what DK is all about, making RHS/DK gardening books is a natural fit for us both. We both need to make the best gardening books. Long may that continue. And so it is only fitting on the Society's two hundredth birthday, that Dorling Kindersley wishes it many, many happy returns.

David Lamb, Gardenening Publisher