Archives: Book Reviews

Conrad Loddiges (1738-1826) was born in the Kingdom of Hannover, now part of northern Germany, but after training in Holland, he moved at age 19 to the village of Hackney, now part of northeast London.  He purchased a seed company, eventually turning this into Loddiges Nursery, one of the most prominent in Europe.

Loddiges of Hackney by David Solman is the history of this business.  It was known for an array of large greenhouses, including a palm house 40 feet high that incorporated innovations such as steam heating and rain-like irrigation – allowing the raising of tropical palms, orchids, ferns, and carnivorous plants.  A cooler, camellia house was created for this genus, allowing winter blooming.  Sadly, none of these greenhouses have been preserved.

Outside, the nursery maintained a large planting of trees and shrubs.  To this the term “arboretum” was first applied by a leading horticultural writer of the day.  However, unlike the Washington Park Arboretum, this was a commercial venture, and these plants were displayed to promote sales.  In the 1820s, Loddiges catalog had 2,664 hardy trees and shrubs, including roses and vines.

Loddiges Nursery was instrumental in providing live subjects for William Curtis and his Botanical Magazine.  When Conrad’s son George Loddiges (1784-1846) began publishing a nursery catalog, titled The Botanical Cabinet, in a similar format, he hastened to assure Curtis’s successor as editor that this was not a rivalry.  He wrote a conciliatory note observing “the boundless variety of the vegetable world is doubtless sufficient to afford subjects for us all.”

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on September 15, 2025

Excerpted from the Fall 2025 issue of the Journal – Book Club of Washington

Sydenham Edwards was born the small town of Brynbuga (Usk in English) in southeast Wales in 1768.  His father was a schoolteacher and church organist.  By the time he was only 10 or 11, he began copying botanical illustrations.

By happenstance, a friend of William Curtis visited the area and was impressed by the boy’s work.  After seeing some examples, Curtis invited Edwards to London to train his obvious skill.  They became close friends, typically going together on botanical collecting trips.  Edwards became the principal artist for The Botanical Magazine and of the over 1,700 illustrations in the first 28 years of publication, he created all but 75.

He stayed for 16 years after William Curtis died, but after a disagreement with the new editor, began his own publication, The Botanical Register, in 1815.  Although he only lived another four years, the publication always had his name associated with it for its run of more than three decades.  It is noteworthy for lengthy descriptions, in English and Latin, and information about origins of the plant used as the model.

Edwards was prolific artist and had wide range of interests, including as a noted illustrator of birds, several works being exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts.  In the January 2024 issue of The Orchid Review, Clare Pritchard says his illustrations “have aesthetic appeal without sacrificing botanical value, bringing plants to life from the page.”  Other than plants, he is best known today for his paintings of dogs.  His book Cynographia Britannica about the breeds of dogs at the time, is rare and highly valued.

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on September 15, 2025

Excerpted from the Fall 2025 issue of the Journal of the Book Club of Washington.

For some authors and illustrators of botanical and horticultural periodicals from the 18th and 19th centuries, there is little biographical information available.  This includes Henry C. Andrews.  As recently as 2017, his date of birth was unknown, as was his full middle name.  But careful review of genealogical records, including documents that record both his marriage and his death, show that he was born about 1759, died in 1835, and his middle name was Cranke, instead of Charles as was assumed in earlier biographical references.

There still is nothing known about his place of birth, or little else before he became an active illustrator.  In 1797, he began publishing The Botanist’s Repository, the first significant rival to The Botanical Magazine by William Curtis.

Andrews notes in his first volume that Curtis’s work “consists of those well-known common plants, long cultivated in our gardens”.  By contrast, his work will include “Coloured Figures of such Plants, as have not Hitherto appeared in any similar publications.”  It was also bigger, quarto size or 9.5”x12”.

Unusual for his time, Andrews drew, engraved, printed (in green ink), and colored all his illustrations.  The descriptions, both in Latin and English, were for the first five volumes attributed to his father-in-law, John Kennedy, who was a nursery owner, although others possibly contributed.  Horticultural information is limited, but more attention is paid to the discovery and introduction of featured plants.

Andrews is perhaps better known for his later work on heaths (Erica species), responding to craze for these South African plants that had gripped the gardening community in England.  Regrettably, the Miller Library does not have this work, or his other books on geraniums or roses.

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on September 15, 2025

Excerpted from the Fall 2025 issue of the Journal of the Book Club of Washington.

 

William Curtis (1746-1799) was born in Alton, England, about 50 miles southwest of central London.  His father was a Quaker tanner.  He was apprenticed to his grandfather, the local apothecary, at age 14, but he was more interested in the natural history learned from the groom at the inn next door, who was an admirer of the writing of John Parkinson.

Curtis moved to London, becoming by his mid-20s a partner in an apothecary practice, but he soon gave this up.  At first, he worked at the Chelsea Physic Garden as a “demonstrator of botany” soon after Philip Miller retired.  Next, he established his own garden in London, open by subscription.  He gave lectures to members along with seeds and plants from the 6,000 species of plants he grew.

Curtis collected a library of 250 books and was an active writer, publishing papers over a range of natural history subjects.  This included an attempt to write the flora of all the plants native within a ten-mile radius of London as he was an early conservationist and concerned with the loss of plant habitats as the city grew.

The Miller Library does not have a biography dedicated to Curtis alone, but his story is at the core of “A Celebration of Flowers.”  Author Ray Desmond tells how this effort to produce a London flora was never completed because of repeated delays in production and disinterest from potential buyers, who were more interested in exotic plants than those they regarded as local weeds.

Curtis was instead encouraged to begin a monthly magazine with illustrations of garden plants, both native and long-established.  The focus was on the quality of the hand-colored prints.  The text, often borrowed from Philip Miller, was supportive but not extensive.

The new publication was well-received.  What is now known as “Curtis’s Botanical Magazine” began with a circulation of 3,000 each month, but was increased to 5,000 because of demand.  Most amazing, it is still being published 237 years later!  Many of the 20^th and all of the 21^st century issues are available in the Miller Library.

A listing of the artists that contributed to “Curtis’s Botanical Magazine” includes most of the best botanical illustrators in Britain.  Most of them were men until the 1870s, but after that it has mostly been women.  The illustrations were almost always drawn from live plants.

At the beginning, 30 people engaged in coloring of the plates printed from this original art.  Typically, women and young children were doing this very repetitive work.  Ray Desmond notes the “Magazine was hand-colored until 1948, a process in the later years in a factory setting with each worker coloring one part of one plate over and over again, before passing it on to the next worker.

Of this dreary process, Desmond continues, “With a relentless pressure of work it was no mean achievement that a creditable level of care and finish was maintained by most colourists.  Where there were lapses it should be remembered that the low wages paid did not encourage them to excel.”

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on February 24, 2025

Excerpted from the Spring 2025 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

At home, “stuck like a schlump on this recliner,” Elspeth Bradbury read travel books and yearned for the adventures she wasn’t having. Then she “hatched a plan” to make small journeys to her back yard, writing about them in the spirit of those travel books.

Two- or three-page entries about those mini trips make up Journeys to the Nearby. Bradbury uses a variety of approaches one might find in travel journals, as she explores her yard. She has fun as she goes.

In one chapter she describes her failed efforts to convince a clematis to grow over a pergola crossbeam. The polite but uncooperative plant reminds her of Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey murmuring, “My dear, I told you so.”

On another adventure she accidentally sits on a favorite woodland peony bush, squashing it. Consoling herself, she contrasts Giotto’s hovering angels to the necessary destruction caused by humans, who cannot hover but must walk on the ground. From there she’s reminded of Gertrude Jekyll’s boots, now preserved at the home of that famous English gardener. Plants, fine art, a garden icon – lots of ways to think of a short trip outdoors.

As in many travel journals, the reader gradually learns the author’s personal history – Scotland, England, New Brunswick, and eventually Vancouver, BC. In her garden at night, she remembers commuting by bus in the dark to her mindless job in a cornflake factory, when she was a student. That memory leads her to Video Night in Kathmandu, a travel book that suggests many cultures now survive only at night and in shadows.

Several chapters deal with animals and birds – chipmunks, deer, and particularly hummingbirds. A favorite was Alf, an alpha male Anna’s, who ferociously drove interlopers from the author’s garden feeder.

Journeys to the Nearby makes a strong case for paying close attention to the neighborhood one happens to live in – watching, listening, making connections to other parts of one’s life. And not taking any of it too seriously.

Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy

Excerpted from The Leaflet, Volume 12, Issue 9, September 2025

The Miller Library has a very large collection of books on ferns, reflecting the intense interest in these plants by area gardeners, especially members of the Hardy Fern Foundation, an international society based in Seattle.  However, these books mostly describe the aesthetics of ferns and the growing requirements in temperate, sufficiently moist gardens.

“Ferns: Lessons in survival from Earth’s most adaptable plants” by Fay-Wei Li and Jacob S. Suissa and illustrated by Laura Silburn takes a different approach.  This is a study of the impressive evolutionary and adaptability history of these plants, that can be found throughout the world in almost every climate and ecosystem.

“Ferns have learned how to climb, creep, and swim their way across our planet.  They have formed intimate relationships with animals, fed societies, and have wreaked havoc on ecosystems.”

How did they do this?  By evolving in ways to survive, even while flowering plants became dominant.  This is why many are adapted to shade, being better able to use the limited light found under large trees than most other vascular plants.

In dry, desert climates, ferns use various strategies to survive.  Some do this by various means of reflecting sunlight away.  Especially amazing are those are desiccation-tolerant – able to lose almost all internal water, yet revive when water becomes available again.

Few plants are used as mascots for sports teams.  But the All Blacks, a powerhouse rugby team from New Zealand, have discovered the strength of these remarkable plants by using the silver fern (Alsophila tricolor) as their insignia.  “The opposing team surely cowers in fear at the terrifying frond.”

Reviewed by Brian Thompson on August 2, 2025

Excerpted from The Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 12, Issue 9, September 2025.

I hate seeing “ultimate” in any book title.  There are many good books on almost every gardening topic.  How can one deserve this designation above all the rest?

I had the privilege this winter of sitting on the committee deciding the American Horticultural Society’s 2025 Book Awards.  As the review copies of nominated books arrived, my bias caused me to immediately downgrade “The Ultimate Guide to Houseplant Propagation” by Lindsay Sisti.

Fortunately, the rigor of the committee required me to spend much more time with this new book – and I discovered it’s a treasure!  I recommend it for anyone who has a pandemic induced houseplant collection, and even those with a long-standing indoor forest of green.

If your propagation skills are like mine, they aren’t much beyond sticking a leafy stem, broken by accident, into a glass of water and hoping.  While this can work, the author provides many more ways to increase your plants with greater success.  I also appreciated her insights into different soil mixes, and the tools that can make your work easier.  For example, I hadn’t realized the value of a magnifying lens as a gardening tool.

Most of the examples use asexual propagation, but there is a chapter on creating your own hybrids from the seeds of flowering plants, using anthuriums (Anthurium sp.) as the model.  Another chapter works through the details of increasing succulents; a process distinct from most typical houseplants.

This is not a selection guide, but it does feature several of the more popular choices as examples.  It also has hints for dealing with a plant that is not thriving, including freeing a pot bound underperformer, or even saving a diseased favorite.

While I haven’t changed my opinion about the use of the word ultimate, I think that author Sisti has come close to that ideal.   The AHS committee agrees, giving her book one of the 2025 Book Awards.  Throughout, she uses a sometimes quirky sense of humor to engage the reader, but with an overall clear intent: “Do whatever brings you—and helps you spread—joy . . . and plants!”

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on February 10, 2025

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Spring 2025

Do you look at natural plant communities as design models for your garden?  These are a neglected source of inspiration, according to co-authors Kevin Philip Williams and Michael Guidi.  In their new book, “Shrouded in Light: Naturalistic Planting inspired by Wild Shrublands,” they encourage you to consider the value of smaller, woody plants that anchor many different landscapes around the world.

This is not your typical gardening book.  There is little specific guidance on how to select, plant, and maintain shrubs.  Instead, the authors want you to understand the aesthetic and ecological dynamics of wild landscapes prominently featuring shrubs.  Taking this a step further, they encourage embracing these plant communities in an almost spiritual sense.  “Let’s bring shrubby chaos into the garden and be shrouded in its light.”

The heart of the book is a global expedition to see different ecosystems in which shrubs thrive.  These vary from very dry to very wet, from coastal to alpine, and are distinct from grasslands, meadows, and forests.  The authors use many tools in their presentation.  This includes contrasting two images of the same landscape, one marked up to show patterns of colors and texture.

Throughout is the pervasive question: What is a garden?  To explore this topic are several examples of gardens that have been designed keeping the wild aesthetics in mind.  Many are in the western United States as both authors are on the staff of the Denver Botanic Gardens.

A regional example is found in Bend, Oregon where the shrub-steppe flora of the area provide the components and form for a green roof.  But the color scheme is much broader than just green.  “The densely planted vegetation celebrates the tawny hues of spent inflorescences and silver sheen of tomentose foliage that typify shrubs in this semi-arid region.”

There is a certain amount of visual levity.  Local readers will recognize something akin to Plant Amnesty’s examples of horrific pruning.  Abstract paintings, spectacular panoramas, and closeup patterns are other ways to expand the perceptions of readers. Overall, this book “is an invitation for you to design, work, live, and play with shrubs.”

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on November 7, 2024

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Winter 2025

“Weeds of the Pacific Northwest” may not sound like an exciting book.  But look closer at the sub-title: “368 Unwanted Plants and How to Control Them.”  Gardeners – these are OUR weeds!  Time to get to know them, and how to eliminate them.  Or just live with them.

Resembling an oversized field guide, photographer Mark Turner’s superb pictures make identifying your culprits quite easy, especially as he provides two or three images for each species.  Turner honed his craft by illustrating two of the standard guides to our native plants: “Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest” (published in 2006 with co-author Phyllis Gustafson) and “Trees and Shrubs of the Pacific Northwest” (2014 with Ellen Kuhlmann).

Author Sami Gray had an important role in the third edition (2019) of “Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest,” writing in the character of original author Art Kruckeberg for new additions and in organizing the photographs.  She bring the same skill set in writing this book, clearly aimed at the small scale gardener.

This combination of talents has resulted in a book that is both an important reference work, and a fascinating look at the non-native plants that have established themselves in our region.  A few natives that can overrun cultivated plantings are also considered.

An example is Equisetum arvense, the common horsetail.  We learned that although this is native throughout most of the northern hemisphere, it is “so ubiquitous and so aggressive” these plants are “widely treated as weeds.”

With deep roots (to 20 feet!) it is very difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate – no surprise to gardeners dealing with this plant.  The final advice: “Small patches may be discouraged, though probably not vanquished, by persistent pulling.  Or you could move.”

How to get rid of other invaders?  There isn’t a one size fits all answer.  In the chapter “Out, Damned Weed,” Gray presents the many techniques and tools available, including a thoughtful discussion on both conventional and alterative herbicides.  The conclusion?  “Prevention is preferable to marathon weeding sessions on hands and knees.  And if a few weeds survive, it’s not the end of the world.”

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on August 15, 2024

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Fall 2024

Update May 8, 2025: The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries gave a 2025 Award of Excellence in Horticulture to “Weeds of the Pacific Northwest”

 

Leafing through the pages of any popular gardening magazine, you’ll find authors extolling their favorite plant.  Scale that up to a whole book of top picks and you have “What Gardeners Grow: 600 Plants Chosen by the World’s Greatest Plantspeople.”

This is quite unlike any other title in the Miller Library collection.  There are over 200 authors.  Each bringing their own voice to describing their choicest garden plant.  Or, in some cases, two or three favorites.  A light hand of editing allows the writers to extol, rant, describe in detail, or rely on esthetic impressions – much like you’d expect in a casual conversation with your NHS buddies.

What makes this remarkable is these are all people who have garnered considerable expertise.  While focused on the UK, this is an advantage to Pacific Northwest gardeners, as most of the plants will thrive here, too.

Speaking for the publisher Bloom (for Frances Lincoln), commissioning editor Zena Alkayat writes, “the motley collection of plant descriptions [are] all written especially for this book and listed in no particular order.”  This random layout could be frustrating – or delightful, depending on your preference and perhaps your mood.

Each author includes insights to best growing techniques, and a sidebar fills in season, size, soil, exposure, and hardiness needs.  But most important is what excites the writer.

A good example is provided by Neil Miller, the head gardener at Hever Castle and Gardens who describes the pineapple guava (Acca sellowiana): “I love exotic and tropical plants and this is the nearest you’re going to get to growing these in the UK.  The plant has beautiful, orchid-style, edible, cherry-red and white flowers with silver green leaves, and delicious fruits that taste of pineapples, apples, strawberries and mint!”

To enhance this description is an illustration by Melanie Gandyra.  Through the book are many of these paintings that while botanically accurate, are soften in a style reminiscent to me of fabric illustrations.  The colors are especially vivid.

This book is fun!  Best for stimulating your imagination rather than as a reference source.  Perfect for flipping through on a warm summer afternoon.

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on May 13, 2024

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Summer 2024