Comments
from Mr. PGC: Throughout
history, many people have made lasting contributions to the
world of plants. In these pages, we hope to pay tribute to
some of them. Our concentration will be primarily on those
who have introduced plants to the gardening world, those who
have helped spread the word about gardening and those who
have made significant contributions to landscaping and
landscaping design around the world.
This list will be constantly growing as we add
new names. If you have someone who you think should be on
the list, please send us an
Email.
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Jim
Crockett |
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 In 1930, Percy Cane
founded and edited the quarterly journal Garden Design. His
designs included
Dartington Hall at Totnes, Falkland Palace in Fife,
Hascombe Court at Godalming, Hungerdown House at Seagry and many
other places including the palace grounds at Addis Ababa.
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British government counsel to
China who, on a trip to
Korea in 1889, collected
Viburnum carlessii (Koreanspice
Viburnum) which was
then introduced into the West.
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 Agricultural
chemist, Carver discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and
hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes. He
pursued his education at Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa
State University), where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree
in 1894 and a Master of Science degree in bacterial botany and
agriculture in 1897. Carver became a member of the faculty of
the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanics (the first
black faculty member for Iowa College).
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 British naturalist who visited America
twice and is credited with identifying the flowering
dogwood,
Cornus florida. He is credited with
introducing
Stewartia to
England
and has several plants
named after him including Trillium catesbyi and
Sarracenia x catesbyi.
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 For nearly half a
century in the early 1800's Chapman roamed what is now the
Midwest establishing nurseries for fruit trees. He would find a
good growing spot and clear away the brush and plant apple seeds
in rows. Some of the nurseries were small while others were
several acres in size. When settlers from the East moved to
these areas, they found apple trees ready for sale for their
home orchards. He became a folk legend and was called either the
Apple Tree Man or Johnny Appleseed.
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 Church
believed gardens should have a more human scale as opposed to the
grandiose dimensions of the estate gardens common at the time. He designed over 2,000
residential gardens
mostly in his
home state of California. He designed public gardens at the
University of California at Berkeley and at
Stanford University.
Church also
helped to design Longwood Gardens near Philadelphia.
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 He
and
Captain Meriwether Lewis explored the American West in
1804-05. Lewis named a genus of annual flowers, Clarkia,
after him.
They also found the plants including
Mahonia
aquifolium (Oregon grape holly),
Gaillardia (blanketflower)
and
Symphoricarpos albus (snowberry) on their
journey and brought them back to the East coast of the
United States.
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American botanist for
whom the genus,
Claytonia (Spring Beauty), was named.
This plant genus includes some 26 species in the family,
Portulacaceae. Most, but not all of the species are
native to North America.
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 Clusius was a Flemish
doctor and botanist who planned Europe's earliest botanic garden
in the Hortius Botanicus in Leiden, Holland. As Prefect of the Royal
Medicinal Garden in Prague, he started a collection of
tulips from
seed. He subsequently became Prefect of the botanic garden in
Holland and over six hundred
were planted at
Leiden
by 1593 which proved to be some of the earliest introductions of
that species.
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- Collinson, Peter (1694 -
1768)
In the
middle 18th century, Collinson, a merchant in London,
made contact with
John Bartram,
a noted horticulturist and plant hunter from near
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Through their long-term
friendship, many, many native American plants were
imported into
England.
As a result of
these efforts, he was named as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
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 French
botanist credited with discovering around 3,000 species of
plants in his expeditions around the world. He named the
genus,
Bougainvillea, after
Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, the captain of one of the
ships on an expedition.
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 Original
host of "The Victory Garden" on public television beginning
April 16, 1975. The "Victory Garden" concept was based on
the small backyard vegetable gardens that were encouraged during
the rationing period during World War II. He was raised on a
fruit farm and graduated from the
Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of
Massachusetts
He wrote three books of gardening advice
including Crockett's Victory Garden, Crockett's
Indoor Garden and Crockett's Flower Garden.
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 On behalf of
Kew Gardens near London,
Cunningham explored
Australia, Brazil and New
Zealand. He was a type of "Johnny Appleseed" who was
known for spreading the
seeds of fruit trees wherever he traveled. He eventually became
superintendent of Sydney Botanic Garden.
Many plants associated with him
contain the name cunninghamii including
Araucaria
cunninghamii, Eucalyptus cunninghamii, Nothofagus cunninghamii,
Olea cunninghamii, Banksia cunninghamii, Corchorus cunninghamii,
Podocarpus cunninghamii, and Zehneria cunninghamii.
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