Reginald Farrer

Reginald Farrer was a great plantsman , explorer and writer . His book : In a Yorkshire Gardenis a especial deary of mine . I love Farrer ’s room with words . Vita Sackville West said he was‘half poet , halfbotanist ’ . He does sometimes baby himself with purple passages and prospicient aside but I love his elan and his eccentricity . He was stick out with a cleft palate and he was small and surly ; perhaps because of this he had a grudge against the humankind . He wanted to be a great fiction author but met with no success with this . His heavy talent was for garden penning .

As we are all quetch about our sempiternal rain this winter , it is interesting to instruct what Farrer thought about the cold calendar month . He hated wintertime . I love his irritable description of dark , cold , wintertime days . He says:‘One begin to feel that one ’s optic nerves are wasting and withering for lack of daylight , and that , in a little while , one will have dwindle into a clean - eyed troglodyte ’ .

He writes about his alpines:‘woolly children of the highest alp make haste to depart to their long base ; soppy and putrid small scads of browned decay ’ .

He has a rattling description of the style primulas often heave themselves out of the soil to expose their root . ‘The Primulas extract first one infantry out of the basis and then another , as if they meant to run away up to the fells . But then , having achieved so much , their long suit or their courage miscarry them , and they lie drunkenly about on the hit it up dry land , with their recollective , white tentacles roll in the air or trailing uselessly across the soil’ . I just love this prototype of primroses pulling themselves out of the soil to take off up the hill .

He await round the garden and witness nothing to cheer him . The shrubs‘drip incessant tears’and he takesno joy in his roses . ‘And on the beat rose - George H.W. Bush fall a thousand buds like shriveled moth ’ . I can not look at my roses in wintertime without watch this image of withered moth .

After this depressing photo of his winter garden he tell us that in January he takes resort in his orchid theatre and spends his time hunt woodlice . He does n’t even seem to find much joy in his winter aconite although he concedes that they are a promise of things to arrive . He say : ‘ I think his color is almost terrible , an acrid , malign yellowish verging towards greenish and dully expressive of the plant ’s poisonous properties . ’How poisonous he is about this lovely footling heyday which gives most of us so much pleasure , ( all flop , it might be poisonous but who on earth is going to go into the garden and eat their aconites ? )

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He then goes on to complain about snowdrops:‘The snowdrop gives mechilblains , only to search at it … .Was there ever such an wintry , inhuman , blanched bloom , crystallised wintertime in three glisten petal and a green - flecked cup ? ‘ This sound like Farrer having a tantrum . He then concedes he does love one snowdrop : Galanthus poculiformis . He loves it only because it has no greenish marks . Apparently , the pure livid one is n’t so icily cold-blooded ; it ’s those green spot ones that injure .

As if January is n’t bad enough with sulphurous aconites and snowdrops giving him chilblains , we then discover that:‘February is wailing round our ears , and there is nothing in the garden but death ’ .

So as February did n’t please him either he took himself off to Cornwall to wait for spring .

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I think most of us find we can sympathise with Farrer ’s depression at the closing of a foresightful winter . In our case this class it is the endless rainwater and clay that is depressing . I do n’t think any of us take against our endearing winter prime the way that he did though .

When he is not moaning about winter , Farrer ’s description of the plants he loves are lyric . His noesis is encyclopaedic . As well as being a keen gardener he was an intrepid plant accumulator . His traveling included visits to Japan , Tibet , China and Burma where he pop off at the young age of forty .

If you would care to instruct more about this great horticulturist I recommend Nicola Shulman ’s fantabulous biography : A Rage for RockGardening : The Story of Reginald Farrer , Gardener , Writer and Plant Collector . It is quite a slim intensity but it is very entertaining and informative about this turbulent person who expose so many of our well - bonk plants .

20 Responses toReginald Farrer

I ’m not sure this is the best record book to read when you ’re in the midst of winter doldrums but Mr. Farrer certainly seems to be an interesting character . I go for you ’ve been pull through the implosion therapy I ’ve heard is plaguing the London area !

Now that vocalise like my sort of book – I have understand about Farrer but not anything by him so will have to seek to remedy that . He does n’t look ugly to my eyes 🙂

I reckon the funniest affair about Farrer was that his beginner gave him money to run as a candidate in an election and he spent the whole lot on industrial plant ! ! !

Reginald Farrer

Reginald Farrer

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