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About this book
No matter where you live in North America, it is likely that the plants in your garden are descended from South American, Asian, Australian, or European plants imported here many years ago. This book traces the journey of the familiar plants we grow in our gardens from their far-flung roots to our backyards.
At one time, North American plants caused enormous excitement in Europe, and an American garden was all the rage. In a clear case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, or in this case, the Atlantic Ocean, American gardeners for their part aspired to reproduce the elegant and formal gardens they saw on their travels to Europe. Today, with the immediate global spread of new ideas and goods, gardens all over the world tend to have much the same flora, whether in Toronto or Tennessee, Auckland or Ankara. The Global Migrations of Ornamental Plants examines the complex series of events that culminated in this floral colonization.
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Biography
Judith Taylor, a retired English physician educated at Oxford, practised neurology and taught at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Since moving to San Francisco with her husband in 1994, she has written three books on horticultural history, including The Olive in California: History of an Immigrant Tree and Tangible Memories: Californians and Their Gardens 1800-1950
By: Judith M Taylor
312 pages, Col & b/w figs, tabs
Dr. Taylor has done an outstanding job in examining the natural roots of our gardens. After reading this richly researched tome, one should never again look at a garden plant, no matter how pedestrian, and not wonder who, when, and where. Daniel Hinkley, notable modern plant explorer
This is a fascinating story, told with a majestic grasp of detail and most stylishly written. Judith Taylor has grasped a subject of immense complexity and presented it in a riveting and readable form, full of insights, allusions, and nuances. Her account of the social, political, and commercial context for plant hunting and the redistribution of economic potential it represents is utterly convincing, and grips the imagination. This is a bravura performance by a distinguished garden historian. Charles Quest-Ritson, well-known English rosarian and garden history expert