That was not always so.

This lovely book tells the fascinating story of Vincent van Gogh's famous floral paintings.

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Gardeners of today take for granted the many varieties of geraniums, narcissi, marigolds, roses, and other beloved flowers for their gardens. Few give any thought at all to how this incredible abundance came to be or to the people who spent a good part of their lives creating it. These breeders once had prosperous businesses and were important figures in their communities but are only memories now. They also could be cranky and quirky. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, new and exotic species were arriving in Europe and the United States from all over the world, and these plants often captured the imaginations of the unlikeliest of men, from aristocratic collectors to gruff gardeners who hardly thought of themselves as artists. But whatever their backgrounds, they all shared a quality of mind that led them to ask “What if?” and to use their imagination and skills to answer that question themselves. The newest rose from China was small and light pink, but what if it were larger and came in more colors? Lilac was very nice in its way, but what if its blossoms were double and frilly? While there are many books about plant collectors and explorers, there are none about plant breeders. Drawing from libraries, archives, and the recollections of family members, horticultural historian Judith M. Taylor traces the lives of prominent cultivators in the context of the scientific discoveries and changing tastes of their times. Visions of Loveliness is international in scope, profiling plant breeders from many countries—for example, China and the former East Germany—whose work may be unknown to the Anglophone reader. In addition to chronicling the lives of breeders, the author also includes chapters on the history behind the plants by genus, from shrubs and flowering trees to herbaceous plants.

Irma Franzen-Heinrichsdorff was a 20th century landscape architect, who was not widely known in Germany. Her creative horticultural work included not least her impressive "landscape ideas" for private gardens, some of which are presented and paid tribute to here for the first time. In this book, Franzen-Heinrichsdorff's remarkable biography is traced using information from previously untapped sources. Franzen-Heinrichsdorff studied at the horticultural institute "Lehr- und Forschungsanstalt für Gartenbau" in Berlin-Dahlem and became the first woman to gain the qualification of "Staatlich diplomierte Gartenbauinspektorin", i. e. horticultural inspector, in the subject of landscape gardening. She thereby attained the highest academic honour there was in this profession at the time. Influenced by expressionism and with an interest in music and dance, the accomplished illustrator and designer had a promising career as a landscape architect ahead of her. Rather than marrying the distinguished solo flutist Alfred Tibursky, the father of her two children, she tied the knot with landscape architect Gustav Heinrichsdorff, only to divorce him several years later. Family-related and professional difficulties forced Franzen-Heinrichsdorff to give up her career, and she went on to run a children's home in the North Sea resort of Dangast for twenty years instead. Undeterred by intermittent harassment from National Socialists, she also cared for three foster children there over the years. It was not until later in life that she had the opportunity to work as a landscape architect once again in Colorado Springs in the United States of America; two of her former foster children and her son were instrumental in paving the way for her.

"Noel Kingsbury reveals that even those imaginary perfect foods are themselves far from anything that could properly be called natural, rather, they represent the end of a millennia-long history of selective breeding and hybridization. Starting his story at the birth of agriculture, Kingsbury traces the history of human attempts to make plants more reliable, productive, and nutritiousa story that owes as much to accident and error as to innovation and experiment. Drawing on historical and scientific accounts, as well as a rich trove of anecdotes, Kingsbury shows how scientists, amateur breeders, and countless anonymous farmers and gardeners slowly caused the evolutionary pressures of nature to be supplanted by those of human needs and thus led us from sparse wild grasses to succulent corn cobs, and from mealy, white wild carrots to the juicy vegetables we enjoy today. At the same time, Kingsbury reminds us that contemporary controversies over the Green Revolution and genetically modified crops are not new, plant breeding has always had a political dimension."--Publisher's description.

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