The best reason to reopen an old book is the thing you can't believe is in it. These are the entries that made us stop and read them aloud to whoever was nearby.
Historic Houses and Their Gardens toured thirty houses across four continents: the Achilleion, Blenheim, the floating gardens of Mexico, the iris gardens at Horikiri. The photographs made armchair travel respectable.
Gerard described every plant the Elizabethans knew, and closed with the Goose Tree — barnacles that hatch into geese. Our copy is Marcus Woodward's classic 1927 distillation of the 1636 edition, engravings included.
Gerard's Herball (The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes), 1927 coming soon
Culpeper's Complete Herbal and English Physician pairs each herb with its governing planet and the diseases it rules — astrology and pharmacy in one volume, and the best-selling plant book of its age.
Culpeper's Complete Herbal and English Physician, 1826 coming soon
Commercial Rose Culture, Outdoor Rose Growing, How to Grow Roses, Successful Rose Culture — an entire shelf of rose-growing science from an age that took its blooms very seriously. All four are coming here.
How To Grow Roses coming soon
Nicholson's Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening runs to four volumes; the Encyclopedia of Practical Horticulture adds four more. Every plant, tool, pest and greenhouse trick of the age, indexed.
The Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening (Nicholson) coming soon