All the Dirt on Gardening

History is fascinating when an author is able to write like historian Andrea Wulf. Wulf's book, The Brother Gardeners, describes the original botanists, their friendships and feuds, from 1716 to 1770. Great Britain became the center of the horticultural world during the colonial period by importing plants and seeds from wherever her ships traveled around the world. In 1716 nurseryman Thomas Fairchild discovered the process by which plants make seed. Fairchild used a feather to pollinate a flower in his Hoxton potting shed. (The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida is named for the plant explorer and botanist David Fairchild (1869-1954), a descendent of Thomas.) One of the brother gardeners, Peter Collinson was a cloth merchant and amateur botanist in London. Many British merchants were getting rich on recently opened markets in the American colonies, the West Indies and East Indies. Collinson's curiosity about plants took him to Fairchild's garden and his enthusias...