Eliza Acton ‘The Real Mrs Beeton’

Elizabeth “Eliza” Acton (17 April 1799 – 13 February 1859) was an English cook and poet, who produced one of the country’s first cookbooks aimed at the domestic reader, rather than professional cooks or chefs: Modern Cookery for Private Families. This introduced the now-universal practice of listing ingredients and giving suggested cooking times with each recipe. It included the first recipe for Brussels sprouts. Isabella Beeton’s bestselling Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861) was closely modelled on it. Delia Smith is quoted as calling Acton “the best writer of recipes in the English language”. Modern Cookery long survived her, remaining in print until 1914.

Life

Acton was born in Battle, Sussex in 1799, the eldest of the five children of Elizabeth Mercer and John Acton, a brewer. The family returned to Suffolk shortly after her birth, and Eliza was raised there. When she was seventeen, she co-founded a girls’ school with a Miss Nicholson in Claydon, near Ipswich. This remained open for four years, until Eliza Acton left due to poor health. She spent some time in France after this.

After returning to England, her first collection of Poems was published in 1826, mostly on the theme of unrequited love. The book was moderately successful, and was reprinted a few weeks after its first issue. She subsequently wrote some standalone, longer poems, including “The Chronicles of Castel Framlingham”, which was printed in the Sudbury Chronicle in 1838, and “The Voice of the North”, which was written in 1842 on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s first visit to Scotland.

Acton’s best-known work Modern Cookery for Private Families was first published in 1845. It was the result of several years of research, undertaken at the prompting of Longman, who had published her Poems. Many of the recipes came from her friends. Modern Cookery quickly became a very popular work, appearing in several editions and remaining a standard cookery book throughout the rest of the century. The book was immensely influential, establishing the format for modern cookbook writing, by listing the exact ingredients required for each recipe, the time needed, and potential problems that might arise. This was a novel departure from previous cookbooks, which were less precise.

Shortly after the publication of Modern Cookery, Acton relocated to Hampstead, London, where she worked on her next and final book, The English Bread Book (1857). Alongside recipes, this contained a scholarly history of bread-making, which included Acton’s strong opinions on some contemporary baking practices. This work was significantly less successful than Modern Cookery, and was only reprinted in 1990.

Acton, who suffered from poor health for much of her life, died in 1859, at the age of 59. She was buried in Hampstead.

Works

•                Poems (London: Longmans, 1826)

•                “The Chronicles of Castel Framlingham” (poem, was in the movie Sudbury Chronicle, 1838)

•                “The Voice of the North” (commemorative poem about the first visit of Queen Victoria to Scotland in 1842)

•                Modern Cookery for Private Families (London: Longmans, 1845)

The English Bread Book (1857)

 

Royal Botanical Gardens Kew : The Worlds Largest Collection Of Living Plants ….

Kew Gardens is the world’s largest collection of living plants. Founded in 1840 from the exotic garden at Kew Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, UK, its living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over seven million preserved plant specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London’s top tourist attractions. In 2003, the gardens were put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

Kew Gardens, together with the botanic gardens at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, are managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (brand name Kew), an internationally important botanical research and education institution that employs 750 staff, and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The Kew site, which has been dated as formally starting in 1759, though can be traced back to the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Lord Capel John of Tewkesbury, consists of 121 hectares (300 acres) of gardens and botanical glasshouses, four Grade I listed buildings and 36 Grade II listed structures, all set in an internationally significant landscape.

Kew Gardens has its own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847.

History

Kew, the area in which Kew Gardens are situated, consists mainly of the gardens themselves and a small surrounding community. Royal residences in the area which would later influence the layout and construction of the gardens began in 1299 when Edward I moved his court to a manor house in neighbouring Richmond (then called Sheen). That manor house was later abandoned; however, Henry V built Sheen Palace in 1501, which, under the name Richmond Palace, became a permanent royal residence for Henry VII. Around the start of the 16th century courtiers attending Richmond Palace settled in Kew and built large houses. Early royal residences at Kew included Mary Tudor’s house, which was in existence by 1522 when a driveway was built to connect it to the palace at Richmond.Around 1600, the land that would become the gardens was known as Kew Field, a large field strip farmed by one of the new private estates.

The exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Lord Capel John of Tewkesbury, was enlarged and extended by Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The origins of Kew Gardens can be traced to the merging of the royal estates of Richmond and Kew in 1772. William Chambers built several garden structures, including the lofty Chinese pagoda built in 1761 which still remains. George III enriched the gardens, aided by William Aiton and Sir Joseph Banks. The old Kew Park (by then renamed the White House), was demolished in 1802. The “Dutch House” adjoining was purchased by George III in 1781 as a nursery for the royal children. It is a plain brick structure now known as Kew Palace.

Some early plants came from the walled garden established by William Coys at Stubbers in North Ockendon. The collections grew somewhat haphazardly until the appointment of the first collector, Francis Masson, in 1771. Capability Brown, who became England’s most renowned landscape architect, applied for the position of master gardener at Kew, and was rejected.

In 1840 the gardens were adopted as a national botanical garden, in large part due to the efforts of the Royal Horticultural Society and its president William Cavendish. Under Kew’s director, William Hooker, the gardens were increased to 30 hectares (75 acres) and the pleasure grounds, or arboretum, extended to 109 hectares (270 acres), and later to its present size of 121 hectares (300 acres). The first curator was John Smith.

The Palm House was built by architect Decimus Burton and iron-maker Richard Turner between 1844 and 1848, and was the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron. It is considered ” the world’s most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure.” The structure’s panes of glass are all hand-blown. The Temperate House, which is twice as large as the Palm House, followed later in the 19th century. It is now the largest Victorian glasshouse in existence. Kew was the location of the successful effort in the 19th century to propagate rubber trees for cultivation outside South America.

In February 1913, the Tea House was burned down by suffragettes Olive Wharry and Lilian Lenton during a series of arson attacks in London. Kew Gardens lost hundreds of trees in the Great Storm of 1987^. From 1959 to 2007 Kew Gardens had the tallest flagpole in Britain. Made from a single Douglas-fir from Canada, it was given to mark both the centenary of the Canadian Province of British Columbia and the bicentenary of Kew Gardens. The flagpole was removed after damage by weather and woodpeckers

In July 2003, the gardens were put on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

The New York Botanical Garden, Where Viagra Helps The Plants !!!!!

 

The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a designated national landmark botanical garden located in the Bronx, New York City. It spans some 250 acres (100 ha) of Bronx Park and is home to the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory. The facility offers exhibitions and flower shows throughout the year and is visited by over 900,000 visitors annually.

Mission statement

The New York Botanical Garden is an advocate for the plant kingdom. The Garden pursues its mission through its role as a museum of living plant collections arranged in gardens and landscapes across its National Historic Landmark site; through its comprehensive education programs in horticulture and plant science; and through the wide-ranging research programs of the International Plant Science Center.

History

The Lorillard family owned most of the land that later became the New York Botanical Garden. That land and adjacent acreage was acquired by the City of New York and set aside for the creation of a zoo and botanical garden. The Garden was established on 28 April 1891 on part of the grounds of the Lorillard Estate (formerly owned by the tobacco magnate Pierre Lorillard) and a parcel that was formerly the easternmost portion of the campus of St. John’s College (now Fordham University). The Garden’s creation followed a fund-raising campaign led by the Torrey Botanical Club and Columbia University botanist Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife Elizabeth Gertrude Britton who were inspired to emulate the Royal Botanic Gardens in London. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1967.

Grounds

The Garden contains 50 different gardens and plant collections. Sightseers can easily spend a day admiring the serene cascade waterfall, wetlands and a 50-acre (20 ha) tract of original, old-growth New York forest, never logged, containing oaks, American beeches, cherry, birch, tulip and white ash trees—some more than two centuries old.

Garden highlights include an 1890s-vintage, wrought-iron framed, “crystal-palace style” greenhouse by Lord & Burnham, now Haupt Conservatory; the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden (originally laid out by Beatrix Jones Farrand in 1916); a rock garden; a 37-acre (15 ha) conifer collection; extensive research facilities including a propagation center, 550,000-volume library, and an herbarium of over seven million botanical specimens dating back more than three centuries.

At the heart of the Garden are 50 acres (20 ha) of old-growth forest, the largest existing remnant of the original forest which covered all of New York City before the arrival of European settlers in the 17th century. The forest itself is split by the Bronx River, the only fresh water river in New York City, and this stretch of the river includes a riverine canyon and rapids. Along the shores sits the landmark Stone Mill, previously known as the Lorillard Snuff Mill built in 1840. Sculptor Charles Tefft created the Fountain of Life on the grounds in 1905. “It was conceived in the spirit of Italian baroque fountains, with the surging movement of galloping horses and muscular riders.”

Research laboratories

The Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, built with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, New York State and New York City, and named for its largest private donor, is a major new research institution at the Garden that opened in 2006. The laboratory is a pure research institution, with projects more diverse than research in universities and pharmaceutical companies.

The laboratory’s research emphasis is on plant genomics, the study of how genes function in plant development. One question scientists hope to answer is Darwin’s “abominable mystery”; when, where, and why flowering plants emerged. The laboratory’s research also furthers the discipline of molecular systematics, the study of DNA as evidence that can reveal the evolutionary history and relationships of plant species. Staff scientists also study plant use in immigrant communities in New York City and the genetic mechanisms by which neurotoxins are produced in some plants, work that may be related to nerve disease in humans.

A staff of 200 trains 42 doctoral students at a time, from all over the world. Since the 1890s, scientists from The New York Botanical Garden have mounted about 2,000 exploratory missions worldwide to collect plants in the wild.

At the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, genomic DNA from many different species of plants is extracted to create a library of the DNA of the world’s plants. This collection is stored in a 768-square-foot (71.3 m²) DNA storage room with 20 freezers housing millions of specimens, including rare, endangered or extinct species. To protect the collection during winter power outages, there is a backup 300-kilowatt electric generator.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has granted the NYBG $572,000 to begin a project called TreeBOL, the Tree Barcode of Life. By sampling the DNA from all 100,000 different species of trees from around the world over the next few years, TreeBOL will document the diversity of plant life, and advance the process of plant DNA barcoding.

LuEsther T. Mertz Library

When, in 1881, land was set aside by the New York State Legislature for the creation of “a public botanic garden of the highest class” for the City of New York, the Library and Conservatory were the first two structures built on the grounds. Prominent civic leaders and financiers, including Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J. P. Morgan, agreed to match the City’s commitment to finance the buildings and improvements.

Founded in 1899, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library is considered to be the largest, most comprehensive botanical library in the Americas. In addition to botany, horticulture, the Library’s collections are used for studies in fields as diverse as history, anthropology, landscape and building design, architectural history, ethnobotany, economic botany, urban social history, and environmental policy. In addition to current scholarly books and serials, the Mertz Library holds many rare, and historically important works ranging from medieval herbals, to 17th-century depictions of the princely gardens of Europe, to accounts of botanical exploration and discovery in the 18th century, to the writings of Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) and Charles Darwin.

The Library has been led by a series of accomplished individuals during its over 100 year history. Their names and dates of service are as follows:

• T. MacDougal (acting librarian, 1899)
• Anna Murray Vail (January 1900 – September 1907)
• John Hendley Barnhart (October 1907 – December 1912)
• Sarah Harlow (January 1913 – October 1937)
• Elizabeth C. Hall (November 1937 – 1960)
• James J. Daly, Administrative Librarian (1960–1961)
• Robert Jones, Administrative Librarian, 1962
• Mulford Martin, Acting Senior Curator of the Library (1964–1965)
• John F. Reed, Curator of the Library (1965–1971)
• Charles R. Long, Administrative Librarian (1972–1986)
• John F. Reed, VP for Education and Director of the Library (November 1992 – June 2003)
• Susan Fraser, Director of the Library (2004 – present)

The collection grew both through purchase of books and through the generous donation of significant botanical and horticultural libraries from notable botanists, gardeners, scientists and book collectors Among the important personal collections to be given to the LuEsther T. Mertz Library are donations from

• Eleanor Cross Marquand
• Sarah Gildersleeve Fife
• Lucien Marcus Underwood
• Robert Hiester Montgomery
• Emil Starkenstein
• John Torrey
• Harriet Barnes Pratt
• David Hosack

Enid A. Haupt Conservatory

The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is a greenhouse located toward the western end of the NYBG. Inspiration for the park and the conservatory stemmed from Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife Elizabeth. The couple had visited the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew on their honeymoon and thought a similar park and conservatory should be built for New York City. The conservatory was designed by the major greenhouse company of the late 1890s, Lord and Burnham Co. The design was modeled after the Palm House at the Royal Botanic Garden and Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in Italian Renaissance style. Groundbreaking took place on January 3, 1899 and construction was completed in 1902 at a cost of $177,000. The building was constructed by John R. Sheehan under contract for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Since the original construction, major renovations took place in 1935, 1950, 1978, and 1993.

 

Kirstenbosch : Cape Town, From An Almond Hedge Was Born This Stunning And Internationally Famous Botanical Garden ….

 

Kirstenbosch is a famous botanical garden nestled at the foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town. (It is on the eastern slopes of the mountain, not on the northern side normally depicted in the standard tourist snapshots). (Kirstenbosch should not be confused with the similarly named suburb of Kirstenhof which lies some 10 km to the south.)

The garden is one of nine National Botanical Gardens covering five of South Africa’s six different biomes. When Kirstenbosch, the most famous of the gardens, was founded in 1913 to preserve the country’s unique flora, it was the first botanical garden in the world with this ethos. Furthermore, what makes the Gardens so famous worldwide is that (with minor exceptions) only indigenous plants are cultivated.

The garden includes a large conservatory (The Botanical Society Conservatory) exhibiting plants from a number of different regions, including savanna, fynbos, karoo and others. Outdoors, the focus moves to plants native to the Cape region, highlighted by the spectacular collections of proteas. Kirstenbosch enjoys great popularity with residents and visitors. From the gardens several trails lead off along and up the mountain slopes and these are much used by walkers and mountaineers. One of the trails, up a ravine called Skeleton Gorge, is an easy and popular route to the summit of Table Mountain. This route is also known as Smuts’ Track after Prime Minister Jan Smuts who used this route regularly. On the slopes above the cultivated parts of the garden a contour path leads through forests to Constantia Nek to the south. The same contour path can be followed to the north for many kilometres and it will take the hiker past the Rhodes Memorial to the slopes of Devil’s Peak and beyond.

Kirstenbosch regularly exhibits Zimbabwean stone sculptures in the gardens. Many of the artists are associated with Chapungu Sculpture Park in Zimbabwe.

In summer, a popular series of outdoor concerts are held in the gardens on Sunday evenings.

History

In 1660, by order of Jan van Riebeek, a hedge of Wild Almond and brambles was planted to afford some protection to the perimeter of the Dutch colony. Sections of this hedge, named Van Riebeek’s Hedge, still exist in Kirstenbosch. The hedge is a Provincial Heritage Site. The area of the botanical garden was used for the harvesting of timber during this period.

The Kirsten part of the name is believed to be the surname of the manager of the land, J.F. Kirsten, in the 18th century. The bosch part of the name is a Dutch word for ‘forest’ or ‘bush’.

The handover of owenship of the colony to Britain in 1811 wrought changes in the use of the Kirstenbosch area. Two large land grants were made, with a Colonel Bird building a house, planting chestnut trees, and probably establishing a bath (still extant) fed by a natural spring. The Ecksteen family acquired the land in 1823, and it later came into the possession of the Cloete family (a well-known Cape lineage). It was under their stewardship that the area was farmed more formally, being planted with oaks, fruit trees and vineyards.

The land was thereafter purchased by Cecil John Rhodes in 1895. After this point, the area became run-down, with large groups of pigs feeding on the acorns and wallowing in the pools. The famous Camphor Avenue was planted in 1898.

The land now occupied by the Kirstenbosch Gardens was bequeathed to the Nation by Cecil Rhodes, who died in 1902.

The history of the area as a botanical garden has its origin in Henry Harold Pearson, a botanist from Cambridge University who came to the Cape Colony in 1903 to take up a position as professor in the newly created Chair of Botany at the South African College (the predecessor of today’s University of Cape Town.) In February 1911, Pearson visited the area of Kirstenbosch by cart to assess its suitability as a site for a botanical garden. On 1 July 1913, the area was set aside for this purpose by the government of the Colony, with an annual budget of ₤1,000. There was no money set aside for a salaried director’s position, but Pearson accepted the position without pay. He lived in the gardens in difficult and reduced circumstances.

The task confronting Pearson was formidable. The area was overgrown, populated by wild pigs, overrun with weeds and planted with orchards. Money was tight, and the budget was supplemented by the sale of firewood and acorns. Pearson commenced work in the area of Kirstenbosch known as “The Dell”, planting cycads which are still visible there today.

Pearson died in 1916 from pneumonia. He was buried in his beloved garden, and his epitaph is still there today : “If ye seek his monument, look around”.

As of 1 September 2004, the National Botanical Institute has become the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).

Chelsea Flower Show

In 2008, the Kirstenbosch exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show won a gold medal for the most creative display and the President’s Cup (a new award by the Royal Horticultural Society president Peter Buckley to his favourite stand). The 2008 exhibit was the 16th designed by David Davidson and Raymond Hudson, which established South Africa “as a front runner in horticulture”. The exhibit was entitled The Heat is On and featured an aloe dichotoma (also known as a quiver tree), which is being studied and monitored as an indicator of climate change. Dead and dying quiver trees were displayed alongside live specimens to illustrate how warmer temperatures have forced the species to migrate southwards. Kirstenbosch has won 29 gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show in 33 appearances.

 

The Chelsea Physic Garden London (Probably the only place legally growing Cannabis in Central London)

The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries’ Garden in London, England, in 1673. (The word “Physic” here refers to the science of healing.) This physic garden is the second oldest botanical garden in Britain, after the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, which was founded in 1621.

This little gem of a garden is well worth a visit, it is a short walk from Chelsea Bridge and or Victoria Station.

Its rock garden is the oldest English garden devoted to alpine plants. The largest fruiting olive tree in Britain is there, protected by the garden’s heat-trapping high brick walls, along with what is doubtless the world’s northernmost grapefruit growing outdoors. Jealously guarded during the tenure of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, in 1983 the Garden became a registered charity and was opened to the general public for the first time. The garden is a member of the LondonThe Worshipful Society of Apothecaries initially established the garden on a leased site of Sir John Danvers’ well-established garden in Chelsea, London. This house, called Danvers House, adjoined the mansion that had once been the house of Sir Thomas More. Danvers House was pulled down in 1696 to make room for Danvers Street.

In 1713, Dr Hans Sloane purchased from Charles Cheyne the adjacent Manor of Chelsea, about 4 acres (1.6 ha), which he leased in 1722 to the Society of Apothecaries for £5 a year in perpetuity, requiring only that the Garden supply the Royal Society, of which he was a principal, with 50 good herbarium samples per year, up to a total of 2,000 plants.

That initiated the golden age of the Chelsea Physic Garden under the direction of Philip Miller (1722–1770), when it became the world’s most richly stocked botanic garden. Its seed-exchange program was established following a visit in 1682 from Paul Hermann, a Dutch botanist connected with the Hortus Botanicus Leiden and has lasted till the present day. The seed

exchange program’s most notable act may have been the introduction of cotton into the colony of Georgia and more recently, the worldwide spread of the Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus).

Isaac Rand, a member and a fellow of the Royal Society published a condensed catalogue of the Garden in 1730, Index plantarum officinalium, quas ad materiae medicae scientiam promovendam, in horto Chelseiano. Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737–39) was illustrated partly from specimens taken from the Chelsea Physic Garden. Sir Joseph Banks worked with the Head Gardener and Curator, John Fairbairn during the 1780–1814 period. Fairbairn specialized in growing and cultivating plants from around the world.

Parts of this classic garden have been lost to “development” – the river bank during 1874 construction of the Chelsea Embankment on the north bank of the River Thames, and a strip of the garden to allow widening of Royal Hospital Road. What remains is a 3.5 acres (1.4 ha) patch in the heart of London.

The present chairman of the trust which operates the Garden is Sarah Troughton, Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire. Museums of Health & Medicine

People : Dr D G Hessayon, The Gardener, Author Who Made Us All Experts & Is The Most Published Garden Writer Of All Time ….

David Gerald Hessayon (born 1928) is a British author and botanist of Cypriot descent who is known for a best-selling series of gardening manuals known as the “Expert Guides” under his title Dr. D. G. Hessayon. The series started in 1958 with Be Your Own Gardening Expert and in 2008 the celebrated their 50th anniversary and the 50 millionth copy in print. They have become the best selling gardening books in history.

Early life

Hessayon is the son of a Cypriot landowner and grew up in Salford, England. He gained a Bachelor of Science degree in botany from Leeds University. In 1950, he travelled to the United States where he worked as the editor of a small town newspaper. In 1953, he went to Ghana as a Research Fellow at the University College before returning to Manchester to obtain his doctorate in soil ecology. In 1955, he accepted a position as chief scientist with Pan Britannica Industries Ltd(PBI), becoming chairman in 1972. It was here Dr. Hessayon formulated the idea for his “Expert” guides to gardening.

The “Expert” guides

A steady stream of publications followed the initial Be Your Own Gardening Expert, each maintaining the basic formula of down-to-earth writing with pictures, charts, and photographs. On the British bestsellers list for the 1980s, two Experts were in the Top 10. There are (as of 2009) over 20 “Expert” titles in 22 languages and in Britain their sales continue to dominate the gardening paperback lists. The Vegetable & Herb Expert continues to be the best seller.

Recognition

In 1993, he received the first-ever Lifetime Achievement award at the British Book Awards. He was also awarded The Veitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society for his contribution to the advancement and improvement of the science and practice of horticulture. In 1999, he was awarded a Guinness World Records certificate for being Britain’s “bestselling non-fiction author of the 1990s”.

Despite a resolve to stay out of the limelight, he has received further awards- a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Garden Media Guild, three honorary doctorates and, in 2007, an OBE. In 2012 he was included in the Daily Mail list of “60 truly great Elizabethans” for “teaching millions of us how to garden”.

People : Monty Don, Gardener, Designer & Artist, From Costume Jewellery to Jewel Garden….

Montagu Denis Wyatt “Monty” Don (born 8 July 1955) is an English television presenter, writer and speaker on horticulture, best known for presenting the BBC television series Gardeners’ World.

Early life

Monty Don was born in Berlin, to British parents, Denis T. K. Don, a career soldier posted in Germany, and Janet Montagu (née Wyatt). Both parents died in the 1980s. Don has a twin sister, an elder brother David, and two other siblings. His twin suffered a broken neck in a car crash, aged 19.

Both his paternal grandmother and grandfather were Scottish, through whom he is descended from the Keiller family of Dundee, inventors of chip marmalade in 1797. Meanwhile, on his maternal side, he is descended from the Wyatts, who were a prominent dynasty of architects.

Don was educated at three independent schools: Quidhampton School in Basingstoke, Hampshire, Bigshotte School in Wokingham, Berkshire, and at Malvern College in Malvern, Worcestershire, a college he hated. He then attended a state comprehensive school, the Vyne School, in Hampshire. He failed his A levels and while studying for re-takes at night school, worked on a building site and a pig farm by day. During his childhood he had become an avid gardener and farmer. He determined to go to Cambridge out of “sheer bloody-mindedness”, attending Magdalene College, where he read English and met his future wife Sarah.

Career

In the 1980s, Don and his wife formed a successful company that made and sold costume jewellery under the name Monty Don Jewellery. The collapse of the company in the early 1990s prompted him to embark on a career in writing and broadcasting. He has written about the rise and collapse of their business in The Jewel Garden, an autobiographical book written with his wife. “We were lambs to the slaughter and we lost everything, […] we lost our house, our business. We sold every stick of furniture we had at Leominster market,” he wrote. He was unemployed from 1991 to 1993.

Don’s first TV work came as the presenter of a gardening segment on breakfast show This Morning. He featured as a guest presenter for the BBC’s Holiday programme. He went on to present several Channel 4 land and gardening series: Don Roaming, Fork to Fork, Real Gardens and Lost Gardens, and wrote a regular weekly gardening column for The Observer between February 1994 and May 2006. Don had never received formal training as a gardener. He commented, “I was – am – an amateur gardener and a professional writer. My only authority came from a lifetime of gardening and a passion amounting to an obsession for my own garden.” He is a keen proponent of organic gardening and the practice of organic techniques, to some extent, features in all of his published work. The organic approach is most prominent in his 2003 book The Complete Gardener.

Don was the main presenter on BBC Two’s Gardeners’ World from 2003 to 2008 succeeding Alan Titchmarsh. He was the first self-taught horticulturist presenter in the show’s 36-year history, stepping down only after suffering a minor stroke. After viewing figures for Gardener’s World fell below two million for the first time in 2009, in January 2010, changes were announced to the programme in an attempt to entice viewers back. In December 2010, it was announced that Don would be returning to the programme as lead presenter for the 2011 series, replacing Toby Buckland. Reaction to the announcement was divided on the programme’s blog. Since March 2011 he has been presenting the programme from his own garden (called Longmeadow) in Herefordshire.

Don featured in the BBC programme and book, Growing out of Trouble, in which several heroin addicts manage a 6-acre (24,000 m²) Herefordshire smallholding in an attempt at rehabilitation. He also presented Around the World in 80 Gardens (BBC Two 27 January – 30 March 2008) and in December 2008, narrated a programme about the cork oak forests of Portugal, for the BBC’s natural history series Natural World. He presented My Dream Farm, a series which helped people learn to become successful smallholders (Channel 4, January 2010) and Mastercrafts, a six-part series for BBC Two, which celebrated six traditional British crafts. He has twice been a panellist on the BBC’s Question Time (February 2009 and March 2010) and his family history was the subject of the fourth programme in the seventh series of the BBC genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are? (August 2010). In April 2011 Don presented Italian Gardens, a four-part BBC2 series which was accompanied by the publication of a book.

In late 2008 Don became President of the Soil Association and is a Patron of Bees for Development Trust.

In 2013, Don presented an episode of Great British Garden Revival.

Personal life

Don and Sarah married in 1983 and have three children. The couple lived in Islington, North London while Don pursued postgraduate study at the London School of Economics, worked as a waiter at Joe Allen restaurant in Covent Garden and later as a dustman, and completed two unpublished novels. Meanwhile Sarah trained as a jeweller.

Don has written of his struggle with depression since the age of 25 and Seasonal Affective Disorder. He describes in his memoir “great spans of muddy time” in which there is nothing but depression. He noted “‘Earth heals me better than any medicine”. He has had cognitive behavioural therapy and took Prozac before favouring a lightbox, now a recognised aid for Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferers. He had peritonitis in 2007 and a minor stroke in 2008.

He lives near Ivington, Herefordshire, England, and has lived in Herefordshire for over 20 years.

Plant Hunters : Sir Ghillean Prance, A Remarkable Man, From Eden to Eden ……..

Sir Ghillean Tolmie Prance  FIBiol FRS FLS FRS (born 13 July 1937) is a prominent British botanist and ecologist who has published extensivelyon the taxonomy of families such as Chrysobalanaceae and Lecythidaceae, but drew particular attention in documenting the pollination ecology of Victoria amazonica. Prance is a former Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Early life

Prance was born on 13 July 1937 in Brandeston, Suffolk, England.[1] He was educated at Malvern College and Keble College, Oxford. In 1963 he received a D. Phil. in Forest Botany from the Commonwealth Forestry Institute.

Career

Prance worked from 1963 at The New York Botanical Garden, initially as a research assistant and, on his departure in 1988, as Director of the Institute of Economic Botany and Senior Vice-President for Science. Much of his career at the New York Botanical Garden was spent conducting extensive fieldwork in the Amazon region of Brazil. He was Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 1988 to 1999.

Current work

Since his retirement he has remained very active, notably involving himself with the Eden Project. Prance, a devout Christian, is currently the chair of A Rocha and was president of Christians in Science 2002–08.

He is actively involved on environmental issues, a trustee of the Amazon Charitable Trust, and a Vice-President of the Nature in Art Trust.

Honours

Prance was knighted in 1995. He has been a Fellow of the Linnean Society since 1961, a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1993 and was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour in 1999.

In 2000 he was made a Commander of the Order of the Southern Cross by the President of Brazil.

Legacy

Two photographic portraits of Prance are held at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

A biography of Prance was written by Clive Langmead.

The standard author abbreviation Prance is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name

Plant Hunters : John Tradescant The Younger, The Real Lord of the Aster….

John Tradescant the Younger (4 August 1608 – 22 April 1662), son of John Tradescant the elder, was a botanist and gardener, born in Meopham, Kent and educated at The King’s School, Canterbury. Unlike his father, who collected via other people bringing back specimens, he went in person to Virginia between 1628-1637 (and possibly two more trips by 1662, though Potter and other authors doubt this) to collect plants. Among the seeds he brought back, to introduce to English gardens were great American trees, like Magnolias, Bald Cypress and Tulip tree, and garden plants such phlox and asters. He also added to the cabinet of curiosities his American acquisitions such as the ceremonial cloak of Chief Powhatan, one of the most important Native American relics. Tradescant Road, off South Lambeth Road in Vauxhall, marks the former boundary of the Tradescant estate, where the collection was kept.

When his father died, he succeeded as head gardener to Charles I and Henrietta Maria of France, making gardens at the Queen’s House, Greenwich, designed by Inigo Jones, from 1638 to 1642, when the queen fled the Civil War. He published the contents of his father’s celebrated collection as Musaeum Tradescantianum — books, coins, weapons, costumes, taxidermy, and other curiosities — dedicating the first edition to the Royal College of Physicians (with whom he was negotiating for the transfer of his botanic garden), and the second edition to the recently restored Charles II. Tradescant bequeathed his library and museum to (or some say it was swindled from him by) Elias Ashmole (1617–1692), whose name it bears as the core of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford where the Tradescant collections remain largely intact.

He was buried beside his father in the churchyard of St-Mary-at-Lambeth which is now established as the Museum of Garden History.

He is the subject of the novel Virgin Earth by Philippa Gregory, sequel to Earthly Joys on his father.

The standard author abbreviation Trad. is applied to species he described.

People : Sir Roy Strong, The Only Living Landscape Architect & Garden Designer To Have 17 Portraits In The National Portrait Gallery…..

Sir Roy Colin Strong FRSL (born 23 August 1935) is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He was knighted in 1983.

Biography

Early years

Roy Colin Strong was born in Winchmore Hill, then in Middlesex, and attended nearby Edmonton County School in Edmonton.

He earned a first class honours degree in history at Queen Mary College, University of London. He then earned his Ph.D from the Warburg Institute, University of London and became a research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research. His passionate interest in the portraiture of Queen Elizabeth I was sidelined “while he wrote a thesis on Elizabethan Court Pageantry supervised by the Renaissance scholar, Dame Frances Yates who (he says) restructured and re-formed my thinking.” In 2007 Strong listed his qualifications as DLitt PhD FSS.

Career

National Portrait Gallery

He became assistant keeper of the National Portrait Gallery in 1959, and was its director 1967-73: Sir Roy came to prominence at age 32 when he became the youngest director of the National Portrait Gallery. He set about transforming its conservative image with a series of extrovert shows, including “600 Cecil Beaton portraits 1928-1968.” Dedicated to the culture of the 1960s and 1970s, Sir Roy went on to amuse audiences at the V&A in 1974 with his collection of fedora hats, kipper ties and maxi coats. By regularly introducing new exhibitions he doubled attendance.

Reflecting on his time as director of the National Portrait Gallery, Sir Roy Strong pinpoints the exhibition “Beaton Portraits 1928-1968” as a turning point in the gallery’s history. Strong chose fashion photographer Cecil Beaton as a catalyst for change says much about the glamour and appeal of the photographer’s work. But even so, it seems unlikely that anyone could have predicted the sheer scale of the exhibition’s success. “The public flocked to the exhibition and its run was extended twice. The queues to get in made national news. The Gallery had arrived”, Strong wrote in the catalogue to Beaton Portraits, the more recent exhibition of Beaton that ran at the gallery until 31 May 2004.

Victoria & Albert Museum

In 1973, aged 38, he became the youngest director of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London. In his tenure, until 1987, he presided over its The Destruction of the Country House (1974, with Marcus Binney and John Harris), Change and Decay: the future of our churches (1977), and The Garden: a Celebration of a Thousand Years of British Gardening (1979), all of which have been credited with boosting their conservationist agendas. In 1980, “he was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation of Hamburg in recognition of his contribution to the arts in the UK.” He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society’s President’s Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2003.

Television

In 2008 Strong hosted a six-part TV reality series The Diets That Time Forgot. He acted as the Director of the fictitious Institute of Physical Culture, where nine volunteers spent 24 days testing three weight loss diets and fitness regimes that were popular in the late Victorian (William Banting) and Edwardian periods (Horace Fletcher) and the ‘roaring’ Twenties (Dr Lulu Hunt Peters). The weekly series was first aired on 18 March on Channel 4.

Writings

In 1999, he published The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts, a widely acclaimed 700-page study of British arts through two millennia. In 2005, he published Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy.

Personal life

Marriage

Roy Strong married Julia Trevelyan Oman in 1971. The arts world was astonished when “Strong abandoned the bachelor life and ‘eloped’ with Julia Trevelyan Oman, marrying her at Wilmcote church, near Stratford-upon-Avon, on 10 September 1971 with a special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Julia Trevelyan Oman was 41 and her husband 35…they enjoyed a belated honeymoon in Tuscany.” She died in 2003 of pancreatic cancer.

Herefordshire

Sir Roy lives in the village of Much Birch, which lies 8 miles (13 km) south of Hereford on the A49 trunk road. Here, with his wife, he designed one of Britain’s largest post-war formal gardens, the Laskett. In 1995 he and his wife commissioned the artist Jonathan Myles-Lea to paint a ‘portrait’ of the house and gardens and the painting the Laskett was completed the same year. Sir Roy now works full-time as a writer and broadcaster. He has lived in Herefordshire since 1973-74 and he and his wife conceived the Laskett garden in autumn 1974.

From 22 April 2010 the Laskett Gardens have been open to the public by appointment, for groups of over twenty.

After leaving the V&A, Strong published a set of diaries that became infamous for its often critical assessments of figures in the art and political worlds. It has been rumoured that he has retained a set for posthumous publication. Jan Moir commented in 2002: “His bitchy, hilarious diaries caused a storm when they were published in 1997 and although he has no plans at present to publish another set, he is keeping a private diary again.”

Anglicanism

A practising Anglican, Strong is an altar server at Hereford Cathedral, as well as being high steward of Westminster Abbey. He was previously its high bailiff and Searcher.[11] In this capacity he attended the funeral service of the Queen Mother in 2002. On 30 May 2007, in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, he delivered the annual Gresham College Special Lecture, entitled The Beauty of Holiness and its Perils (or what is to happen to 10,000 parish churches?), which was deeply critical of the status quo. He said: “little case can be made in the twenty-first century for an expensive building to exist for a service once a week or month lasting an hour,” and he recommends someone taking “an axe and hatchet the utterly awful kipper coloured choir stalls and pews, drag them out of the church and burn them,” and “letting in the local community” in order to preserve many rural churches in Britain.

Portraits of Roy Strong

Seventeen portraits of Strong reside in the National Portrait Gallery Collection including both photograph and sketch by Cecil Beaton and an oil painting by Bryan Organ. An early bronze bust by Angela Conner is on view at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. In 2005, Strong sat for Jon Edgar for a work in terracotta which was exhibited at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2013 as part of the Sculpture Series Heads – Contributors to British Sculpture.

Honorary positions

Chairman of the Art Department, Arts Council.

• Deputy Chairman, Southbank Centre.
• High Bailiff and Searcher of the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, from 2000.
• President, the Garden History Society, 2000-06.

President, the Friends of Croome Park, from 2008.