Browsing second-hand books a few months back I chanced up a shelf that had a stack of similar looking volumes which all came from a series called “Handbooks of Practical Gardening”. They covered almost every aspect of horticulture you can imagine from Asparagus Growing and Bee-Keeping to Daffodils and Fruit Bottling via Garden Pests, Window Gardening and Rarer Vegetables.
They were published in the first couple of decades of the last century, and then I noticed they were all edited by a man named Harry Roberts, who presumably must have known something about horticulture, but since I’d never heard of him I thought I’d see if I could find out more. It certainly wasn’t what I expected …
Following on from last week’s history of the crocus this week’s going to look at the man who really popularised them in Britain. Edward Augustus Bowles -“Gussie” or “Bowlesy” to his friends – was one of the 20th century’s great gardeners. Largely self-taught he was an accomplished artist, entomologist and botanist and an entertaining and knowledgeable writer who travelled widely with many eminent plant hunters of the day including his good friend, the plant hunter Reginald Farrer, who called him both “Little Father Augustus” and “The Crocus King”.
The Garden History Blog 
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