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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 French Father David, was sent to China as a missionary.
He was a man of wide interests beyond his religion including botany, zoology, geology and ornithology.
While attending to his priestly duties, he also had time to
collect and record 250 new
plant species including
Davidia involucrata,
Acer
davidii, rosa davidii,
Astilbe chinensis var.
davidii,
Buddleja davidii, Chrysosplenum davidianum,
Clematis armandii,
Lilium davidii, Pinus armandii,
Populus tremula var. davidiana.
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The first European botanist in western China. He discovered many
garden plants in Yunnan. A magnolia and silver fir bear his name.
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  Michael
A. Dirr is a professor of horticulture at the University of
Georgia. He is the author of eleven books, including Dirr's
Hardy Trees and Shrubs and the Manual of Woody Landscape
Plants.
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 A native of Scone in Scotland, David Douglas studied at the
Glasgow Botanic Gardens. On the recommendation of Sir William
Hooker, he was employed by the Horticultural Society to travel to
America's west coast and gather vast quantities of seed from
species previously unknown in the UK, including the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii),
Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) and
Sitka spruce
(Picea
sitchensis).
Plants
he introduced include: Spiraea douglasii,
Limnanthes douglasii, Garrya elliptica, Clarkia, Godetia,
Gaillardia, Lupin, Collinsia, Mimulus, Eschscholtzia and
Penstemon.
While collecting in the Sandwich
Islands, he fell into one of the pits made to catch wild bulls,
and was gored to death. |
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 Downing is considered the founder of landscape gardening in the
U.S. While Olmstead
worked with the grander landscapes on a larger
scale, Downing dealt more with the American middle-class homes.
He was a nurseryman and his emphasis was more on gardening and plants. His landscapes were influenced
by the English ones and were natural in appearance. He wrote his influential book,
The Theory and Practice
of Landscape Gardening, in 1849.
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French architect who specialized in restoration of
classical French gardens such as the châteaux of Vaux-le-Vicomte,
Courances and Corbeil Cerf in France and Schlosspark Nordkirchen
in Germany. He was associated with the pools and Mermaid Fountain at
Blenheim Palace
in Oxfordshire.
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