Tangible Memories

Rating:
Summary: For California History Buffs and Lovers of Gardens
Review: Based on a manuscript written by Harry Butterfield, a Californian devoted to California plants and enthralled by its home gardens, this book owes its existence to the spade-work of Dr. Judith M. Taylor. Taylor found the manuscript by accident, while researching her earlier book on the California olive. While respecting the original record in Butterfield's manuscript, Taylor expands and illuminates it, providing a detailed record of specific California locations, immigrant gardeners and the plants and gardens they cultivated. Taylor's enthusiasm for her subject, fine research and good writing combine in a valuable account of a defining and precious part of California's history.

Rating:
Summary: A Different Look at History
Review: If you are a California gardener or history buff, this is a book for you. I am not a gardener, but I found this to be a totally new perspective on California history. If you have ever wondered about those Eucalyptus trees or the California citrus industry, there is information here. The vision of some of the familiar historical names selecting the plants for their gardens provides a new touch of humanity to these people. Dr. Taylor is to be commended for rescuing Harry Butterfield's work from oblivion and adding her own research in updating it. A most interesting book!

Rating:
Summary: A Different Look at History
Review: If you are a California gardener or history buff, this is a book for you. I am not a gardener, but I found this to be a totally new perspective on California history. If you have ever wondered about those Eucalyptus trees or the California citrus industry, there is information here. The vision of some of the familiar historical names selecting the plants for their gardens provides a new touch of humanity to these people. Dr. Taylor is to be commended for rescuing Harry Butterfield's work from oblivion and adding her own research in updating it. A most interesting book!

Rating:
Summary: The gardens of the Golden State
Review: Only a couple of years after the gold rush, there were already delightful gardens in San Francisco and other parts of California.The old cities such a Monterey and Santa Barbara had Spanish gardens dating from the time of the missions.
Nurserymen arrived in droves almost as soon as the gold was discovered. This book describes mnore than 75 early nurseries and their owners in some detail. Nurseries were essential to the creation of gardens.
The building of Golden Gate Park, San Francisco's largset garden,is given pride of place in this detailed and painstaking work.You will learn how that fearsome old character John Mclaren, superintendent of the park for almost 50 years, came to the park 17 years after it had been created by William Hammond Hall.There is no memorial to Hall anywhere to be found.
The author based this work on a manuscript about old California gardens. She found it lying in a box in the university archives, thirty years after it had been written.Dr Taylor rescued it from oblivion, augmented it extensively and re-wrote large sections to conform with modern taste and style.The archival images alone are priceless.
Almost every county in California is mentioned, reviving the names and memories of wonderful citizens who added something to the state's beauty. They also contributed to establishing the horticultural industry, a very large segment of California's economy.
Reading this book gives you a feeling for how plants were imported to the state from all over the world and when some of the most interesting ones arrived. Many came from Australia and the Orient.The eucalyptus tree, so controversial now, came with the first wave of Australian gold miners.
I recommend it very highly.