Ditch the chocolates and flowers on Mother's Day and head for the bookshops if your mum is green-fingered, as this spring is awash with inspirational reads for the practical gardener.

New publications are in abundance to cater for all mums, from the beginner who wants to grow some vegetables and make her own compost, to the more advanced just looking for design and planting inspiration.

If your mum is going for the natural look, treat her to a copy of Starting Out With Native Plants, by Charlotte de la Bedoyere (New Holland, £14.99), which not only gives an insight into adapting native plants to local soils but also showing gardeners how to grow meadows, including wetland, cornfield and woodland, even if you only have a few square metres of land.

The natural theme continues with The Elements Of Organic Gardening (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, March 15, £20) an impressive tome from The Prince of Wales with Stephanie Donaldson.

The prince shares his organic principles, as practised at Highgrove, Clarence House and Birkhall in Scotland, explaining how they can be adapted to any garden. You'll even have a glimpse of his wife the Duchess of Cornwall's flower arrangements.

For the practical gardener there's a great new Simple Steps series from the Royal Horticultural Society, with the first eight titles featuring everything from Containers For Patios and Easy Pruning to Plants For Shade and Vegetables In A Small Garden. (Dorling Kindersley, £6.99).

This series offers simple advice delivered succinctly along with step-by-step photography of achievable projects, checklists and tips for all gardeners, particularly those just starting out.

Allotments have become the must-have of the 21st century, as busy workers claim their rectangle of earth for growing their own fruit and veg. To feed this passion there's been a glut of allotment books in the last year, the latest of which is Allotment Days, by Matthew Biggs (New Holland, £9.99), a regular panellist on BBC Radio Four's Gardeners' Question Time.

In it, he captures the spirit of this enjoyable pastime and the quirky characters who know their allotments are far more than a place to grow vegetables. It features an insight into the owners, from the champion pumpkin growers to the children who've discovered how to eat their greens by growing them themselves, and is packed with tips and advice.

For mums who rely on the gardening calendar for success, treat them to a copy of Gardening Month By Month from the RHS (Dorling Kindersley, £9.99), a pocket-sized guide to 12 months of essential gardening tasks telling you what you need to do every month to ensure your plants thrive, your lawns stay healthy and that you make the best use of your time in the garden.

Mums who prefer the minimalist, modern look may welcome a copy of The New Tech Garden by designer Paul Cooper (Mitchell Beazley, £16.99), which celebrates gardens in which man-made materials come into their own.

It's a beautifully photographed and inspirational book featuring such space-age synthetic materials as perspex, glass and textiles in gardens from all over the world including kinetic gardens, portable gardens and multi-experience gardens for use both day and night.