Category Archives: Uncategorized

“At 12 o’clock, Saturday May 26th 1792, I had taken the Paddington Road, which the rains of last night had made nice riding, and the face of nature gay”  So begins the  account by  Colonel the Honourable John Byng.  of … Continue reading →

A few month ago I wrote about the Botanical Gardens at Ooty in southern India where the first superintendent was a Kew-trained gardener, William McIvor.   He arrived there in 1848 and spent the rest of his life in Ooty … Continue reading →

It was The Times that called Anne Pratt “the popular writer on botany” but I suspect to most of us [me included] she’s an unknown &  forgotten woman. Yet that’s  a bit strange given that  she was one of the … Continue reading →

Ever since I’ve been researching garden history, one of my regular sources  for information about gardens in the Regency period  has been Ackermann’s Repository of arts an illustrated monthly British periodical that was published between 1809 and 1828. I was … Continue reading →

I wonder if you’ve heard of Philip Miller.  If you’re not a garden historian then probably not,  but he was  probably the most influential British horticulturist and garden writer of the eighteenth century, amongst other things  writing the first dictionary … Continue reading →