Reginald Farrer (1880–1920,) fully Reginald John Farrer, was an English botanist, plant-collector, and writer. He is remembered for his garden of plants from the Himalayas growing today, a wild display around Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales, England.
Born in Clapham, Yorkshire, Farrer was educated at home before going to Balliol College, Oxford. He traveled extensively in Europe, Japan, China (1914–16,) and Upper Burma (1919–20) in search of plants. He lived in Japan for eight months and wrote his adventures in The Garden of Asia (1904.)
Farrer introduced many species into cultivation, and his herbarium collection near his home village of Clapham, North Yorkshire. Distinguished by the expressiveness and detail of his field notes, he published My Rock Garden (1907.) This trendy and influential book was kept continuously in print for more than 40 years.
Farrer wrote five horticultural works: Alpines and Bog-Plants (1908) and The Rock-Garden (1912,) and six travel books. From his student days, he was interested in politics in 1911, standing unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate for Ashford, Kent.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Reginald Farrer
All the wars of the world, all the Caesars, have not the staying power of a lily in a cottage garden.
—Reginald Farrer
Topics: Gardening
I think the true gardener is a lover of his flowers, not a critic of them. I think the true gardener is the reverent servant of Nature, not her truculent, wife-beating master. I think the true gardener, the older he grows, should more and more develop a humble, grateful and uncertain spirit.
—Reginald Farrer
Topics: Gardening
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