Maria Jacson (mis-spelled Jackson) (1755-1829) wrote her book The Florist's Manual (1816) for middle-class women, so that their choice and arrangement of plants would ‘procure a succession of enamelled borders' (p.4) through spring and summer. She…
As well as writing his own books on gardening and arboriculture, the English virtuoso John Evelyn translated several influential French manuals. The first (1658) was Nicolas de Bonnefons's Le Jardinier François, a handbook on the cultivation of…
The Rev. John Laurence (1668-1732), was the first of sixteen clergymen to write important gardening books in the 18th century. His first work The Clergy-Man's Recreation (1714) aimed to preserve the health of clergy by encouraging them…
John Gerard's reputation rests principally upon his Herball or generall historie of plants (1597). It was not original. It was based on the work of Rembert Dodoens and de L'Obel. It does however contain original gardening advice, based on Gerard's…