August is traditionally the silly season in the media, so in keeping with that the next few posts are going to look at garden-related humour, beginning today with the work of Reginald Arkell.
I can hear the muttering already. Who on earth was he? Unless you’ve read his work the name Reginald Arkell probably doesn’t ring many bells today, but until his death in 1959 he was a well-known and successful editor, playwright and later screenwriter, television commentator, lyricist for musicals, novelist and poet. He was also a keen gardener and amongst his works were a series of books of comic garden verse [I hesitate to call them poetry] including Green Fingers and Other Poems and a comic novel Old Herbaceous all of which were in their day best sellers.
As the publishers blurb says: “Anyone who loved the England of Goodbye Mr. Chips and Mrs. Miniver will love Mr. Arkell’s England, too. But the central character is not peculiar to the English countryside; wherever there is a garden, there you will find Old Herbaceous.”
Let’s see if his humour still appeals…
One of the things that almost never ceases to amaze me is how many plants have been named after people who had little or no connections with them, and often wouldn’t even have known they existed let alone seen them. I was reminded of that this morning when looking at a glorious stand of red-hot pokers in my garden. It’s a family of plants that I’ve grown to love over the years, especially once I’d discovered there was more to them than the bog-standard orange variety.
The Garden History Blog 
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