I can't recommend this book enough for people with no gardening skills who suddenly find themselves with a garden to maintain. It's simple enough to be a useful reference for beginners, but comprehensive enough to continue to be useful to more skilled gardeners.

It talks the reader through designing a garden for the climate, soil types, compost, weed control, propatation, pruning etc, and then contains quite a comprehensive guide to the types of plants commonly found in household gardens.

The climate information is specifically Australian so there are probably better books for non-Australian gardeners. ( )