Last week turned out to be extra special for me. On Monday Ohio Unversity Press sent me the cover for my new book All about Flowers: James Vick's Nineteenth Century Seed Company. James Vick (1818-1882) from Rochester, New York, owned…
Everyone can easily list two important Victorian flowers. In his book The Victorian Flower Garden garden historian Geoffrey Taylor hesitates not one moment and presents his two typical Victorian flowers. He writes, "The hollyhock and the scarlet geranium are what…
It is no surprise that seed companies and nurseries grew after 1870 when suburbs spread around the perimeters of large cities. Patrice M. Tice in her book Gardening in America 1830-1910 wrote that the number of men employed as seedsmen,…
The battle between perennial advocates and those who loved to plant annuals stretched into the twentieth century both in England and America. In 1905 Helena Rutherford Ely wrote in her book Another Hardy Garden Book, "Would that the Coleus might…
Victorian seed company believed in advertising - Recently from the New York Botanical Garden's Mertz Digital Nursery and Seed Catalog site I learned a bit about the relationship between seed company owner James Vick (1818-1882) and J. Walter Thompson, the…