Series of essays encompassing the history, science and art of gardens and gardeners from around the world.
Plants in particular: the lost orchid; an American tree in London; nettles; the peripatetic peony; the great white cherry; the meadow garen; mistletoe; "the most interesting plant in North America"; hyacinthine dragons and strawberry delights. Some people: Jagadis Chunder Bose; Joseph Rock; Canon Ellacombe; Reginald Farrer's last journey; Geoff; Henry Ward Beecher; the corncob lab; John Evelyn's elusive elysium; Pere Delavay. Husbandry: machines; gardening books; on keeping records; topiary; old saws; design and its discontents; names; the ingurishu garden. In retrospect: the picturesque garden; the fever bark tree; appleseed's seedling; the bishop's garden; the Quaker axis; birds in the garden; "American weeds"; big trees; the vegetable patch; Doctor Ward's boxes; sex and the single strawberry; the mulberry bubble.
Charles Elliott is an editor and writer who lives in London and gardens in Monmouth near the Welsh border. He is a regular contributor to Horticulture magazine, and has been a magazine editor and senior editor for Alfred A. Knopf in New York. He has written The Transplanted Garden and A Gap in the Hedge: Dispatches from the Extraordinary World of British Gardening as well as edited The Quotable Gardener, The Quotable Cat Lover and The Greatest Cat Stories Ever Told.
'Excellent as always. Charles Elliot is a wonderfully informed and engaging writer.' Bill Bryson