Rush out and buy your favourite gardener a copy of this terrific little book, even if too late for a ‘stocking filler’!
This is one of those gems of a book you dip into. It does not matter how much history, botany or gardening you have done, I am sure you will find yourself saying ‘I did not know that’!
The author, Matthew Biggs, trained at Kew but these days presents TV and radio programs, lectures and travels widely. He also writes for a general audience in a tight but attractive manner.
The concept is good too. Starting with Dioscorides (AD 40─90) he travels in 36 well-designed chapters through to our own very distinguished Dr Kingsley Dixon (1954– ), former Director of the Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth, who is a formidable gardener himself. The idea is that each chapter does a quick and, as far as I could tell, totally accurate gloss on the life story of each ‘botanist’ and leaves space for either explicit or implicit views on the practice of gardening.
And, at last, it does not totally ignore women. Our very own Georgiana Molloy (1805–1843) and Marianne North (1839–1890) get a chapter each.
The Secrets of Great Botanists is also a visual delight, with a mixture of excellent photos and paintings/line drawings in a quality design to delight the eye and titillate the botanical artist.
I absolutely recommend this book and if you did manage to read and absorb it cover to cover, you might even manage to compete with the extraordinary knowledge of AGHS’s living national treasure, Stuart Read!