The Plants that Shaped Our Gardens - Hardcover

Stuart, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674007905 ISBN 13: 9780674007901

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Inspiration, happy accidents, and outright obsessions have all had their way with gardens--but nothing has done more to shape the modern garden than plants themselves. In a story that ranges from continent to continent and spans four centuries, botanist and gardener David Stuart reveals how the garden as we know it was created not by garden designers but by ordinary gardeners responding to exotic and novel plants that suggested new spaces, places, and means of display. The history begins with two earth-changing events--the establishment of colonies in the Americas and the spread of the Turkish empire. Both brought the first astonishing wave of flowering exotics to gardens across Europe. Stuart relates how, over the following centuries, the influx of new plants inspired a frenzy of hybridization (at first by a new breed of gardener, the "florist," later by nurserymen), which in turn led to such features as the familiar herbaceous border, flower bed, and rose garden, as well as the now little-known rockery, shrubbery, and "wilderness."

From the Dutch tulip mania, the eighteenth-century European passion for "American gardens," and on to the rhododendron craze of the nineteenth century, Stuart's book traces the shape of the modern garden as it changed with the fashion, returning at last to classic, cottage garden varieties long neglected in favor of the foreign and new. In conclusion, Stuart looks at plant prospecting today--now that the collecting of plants may prove essential to protecting botanical diversity and preserving plant species rapidly disappearing from the wild.

About this title

About the Author

David Stuart, a botanist, has been a columnist for The Sunday Times of London and also a nurseryman. He is the author of a number of books, including The Garden Triumphant: A Victorian Legacy.

Reviews

Botanist and biologist Stuart (The Garden Triumphant: A Victorian Legacy) here chronicles the efforts of a small number of botanists and plant collectors to retrieve exotic plants for their own gardens and the consequences for generations of professional and amateur gardeners in Europe and then America. Beginning in the Renaissance, these collectors traveled around the globe, from the Americas to the Turkish Empire to China, enduring hostile climates, pirates, famine, strange new diseases, and poverty to capture and cultivate original plant matter for European gardens. Stuart highlights the most colorful aspects of plant collection the triumphs and tragedies, the rivalries and jealousies, and even the role that politics played. The author never spends too much time on any one character but moves effortlessly from one story to the next, including those of John Fremont, "a handsome buffoon and a rascal," and the Empress Josephine, "an ardent and jealous collector" of plants. The text is gorgeously and generously illustrated throughout. While a pleasant read for the casual gardener or plant enthusiast, this volume will be a meeting of the souls for true plant lovers. Highly recommended for public libraries developing collections for impassioned gardeners and recommended for academic libraries with large botanical history collections. Marianne Stowell Bracke, Univ. of Arizona Lib., Tucson
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Avid gardeners eager to obtain the newest perennial cultivar or add yet another conifer species to the garden often self-deprecatingly acknowledge their plant-collecting hobby as an addiction, yet even the most fanatic garden enthusiasts are pikers compared to the early plant collectors, who risked their lives traveling to remote and exotic lands to bring new plant species to their gardens. The world of horticulture is not usually known for its charismatic characters, but Stuart's genius lies in breathing life into historical figures whose astounding passion for plants makes for compelling reading. For those who have wondered who the "Douglas" in Douglas fir is or where petunias originated, Stuart acknowledges the contributions of intrepid botanists and horticulturists, sharing the bizarre as well as the biographical, such as Hooker's flower-picking elephants or Dampier's murderous past. Stuart digs deep to provide arcane historical background, making this meticulously researched and engagingly written treatise a must-read for ardent gardeners who want to know more about the plants that obsess them so. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674007905
• ISBN 13: 9780674007901
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208