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.
 

In addition to the many hats he wore as architect, statesman, politician, and president, he was also an agriculturist, horticulturist, and landscape designer. After designing several estates for friends, he eventually designed his own.

In his designs, Jefferson fused the elements of neo-classicism, such as terraces and symmetrically curved paths, with elements he learned about from his tours of English landscapes--the natural vistas combined with informal shrub and flowers beds. A visit to his Monticello estate in Virginia reveals these elements of his style of landscaping.

Throughout, and to the end of his life, Jefferson was a devoted gardener and landscaper. He once wrote, "Though an old man, I am but a young gardener." In 1811 he wrote, "No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden."

Oregon and California - Pinus jeffreyi. He was a loner. He disappeared in 1852 on a trip from San Diego across the Colorado Desert and was never seen again.

Gertrude Jekyll's book 'Wood and Garden' (1899) had an enormous influence on the English (and hence the world's) attitude to gardens. She saw beauty in natural effects. She collaborated in garden design with architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. They first met in 1889 ". . . at a tea table, the silver kettle and the conversation reflecting rhododendrons, . . ." as Lutyens described it. She is associated with the garden at Bois des Moutiers, near Dieppe, France and Hestercombe in Somerset.

Her planting designs were used at Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire, Manor House Upton Grey, Lindisfarne Castle in Northumberland, Hatchlands in Surrey and Knebworth in Hertfordshire.

She is recognized as one of the greatest influence in the 20th century on herbaceous gardens. Known for her use of flowers and color in garden designs, she used them in woodlands, herbaceous borders, and water gardens. Planned graduations of color are particularly evident in her designs.

Joint author with J.C.Shepherd of the classic Italian Gardens of the Renaissance. Other books were The Landscape of Man (1975) and Baroque Gardens of Austria. Sir Geoffrey's designs were used at Ditchley Park, Sandringham, Sutton Place in Surrey, Shute House in Dorset, Cliveden (rose garden) in Buckinghamshire, Cottesbroke Hall in Northamptonshire, Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire and the Moody Historical Gardens in Texas. He created the Kennedy Memorial at Runnymede and the fine canal at the RHS garden at Wisley.

Creator of Hidcote Manor Garden in Gloucestershire and various plant varieties including Verbena 'Lawrence Johnston' and Hypericum 'Hidcote'.
Major Johnston was born in Paris of an English mother and American father. He personally collected many plants from Africa and China on a plant expedition in 1927. In the early twenties he bought La Serre de la Madonna near Menton in the South of France where he grew sub-tropical plants not suited to the Cotswolds.

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