Reginald Farrer

Infobox Writer
name = Reginald John Farrer


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birthdate = 1880
birthplace = Clapham, North Yorkshire, England
deathdate = 1920
deathplace = China
occupation = Gardener, Writer, Plant Collector
nationality = English
period = 1904 - 1921
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influences =
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Reginald John Farrer (1880 – October 17 1920), was a traveller and plant collector. He published a number of books, although is best known for "My Rock Garden". He travelled to Asia in search of a variety of plants, many of which he brought back to England and planted near his home village of Clapham, North Yorkshire.

Life

Farrer was born into a well-to-do family in Clapham, North Yorkshire, England. Due to a speech defect because of numerous operations on a cleft palate he was educated at home. This developed in him a passionate and lifelong enthusiasm for high places and the mountain plants which grow in them. By 10 years of age he was a well-qualified field botanist with a "fair knowledge of plant anatomy." At 14 years he made his first rock garden in an abandoned quarry.

He entered Oxford University at 17 years of age and graduated in 1902, during his time there he helped make the rock garden at St John’s. In 1902 Farrer embarked on the first of his expeditions to Eastern Asia, visiting China, Korea and, particularly Japan. He was there for eight months and influenced by Japanese gardening tastes and traditions, he developed his characteristically strong views on rock garden design, ‘where naturalism superseded formal artificiality, and where alpine plants were to grow in surroundings which, though ordered by man, copied as far as possible their original habitats’cite news |first= Amanda |last=Hobson |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= REGINALD FARRER OF CLAPHAM |url= http://www.northcravenheritage.org.uk/nchtjournal/Journals/1992/J92A13.html |work= |publisher= North Craven Heritage Trust |date=1992 |accessdate=2007-06-07 ] . These travels resulted in "The Garden of Asia" (1904).

Returning to England he attempted to become a novelist and poet but these publications were only mediocre. He eventually realised that his talents lay in gardening. In 1907 he published "My Rock Garden" which was a very popular and influential book which was kept continuously in print for more than 40 years. His next publications were "Alpines and Bog Plants" (1908), "In a Yorkshire Garden" (1909) and "Among the Hills" (1910). In 1913 he published "The Dolomites: King Laurin's Garden" which deals with plant hunting in the Italian Dolomites.

At this time Farrer travelled widely in the mountains of Italy, France and Switzerland, walking and climbing with gardener friends. He also visited Ceylon in 1907, becoming a Buddhist at about this time.

Farrer was attracted by the horticultural possibilities of the introduction of new hardy rock plants to the British gardening public. With this in mind, he founded the Craven Nursery in Clapham, which specialised in Asian alpines, an enterprise which unfortunately foundered in the economic decline of the 1920's.

In 1914 Farrer and a companion, the Kew-trained William Purdom, set out on an ambitious expedition to Tibet and the Province of Kansu province of North-west China. He found there numerous hardy specimens which today enrich British gardens. Many bear his name, though the list would have been longer if Farrer had not sometimes neglected to collect, as well as plants and seeds, the herbarium specimens necessary for classification and naming. These two years of exploring and plant collecting are described in Farrer's 'On the Eaves of the World' (2 vols) (1917), and in the posthumous 'The Rainbow Bridge (1921).

Farrer drew many illustrations often painted in the most uncomfortable of circumstances, record, not an exact botanical resemblance, but Farrer's emotional reaction to the plant and its habitat. Many of these, and his landscape water-colours of Kansu and Tibet, were exhibited by the Fine Art Society in 1918.

Farrer’s diary conveys the practical difficulties which he faced, and provides a glimpse of his ebullient use of language: "June 2nd, 1919 ... I sat down to paint it (the most marvellous and impressive Rhododendron I've ever seen - a gigantic, excellent, with corrugated leaves and great white trumpets stained with yellow inside - a thing alone, by itself WELL worth all the journey up here and everything) and oddly enough I did not enjoy doing so at first... a first false start - a second, better, splashed and spoilt, then a mizzle, so that umbrella had to be screamed for and held up with one hand while I worked with the other. Then flies and torment and finally a wild dust storm with rain and thunder came raging over so that everything had feverishly to be hauled indoors and the Rhododendron fell over and all the lights and lines etc. were of course quite out of gear. However, I'd done as much as I could for the day by 5.30 but even then was so excited that I continued strolling in glorious meditation till dark and dinner. But one moral is - only paint when fresh or before the day's toils; as it is I must trench on tomorrow which ought to be wholly a rush of letters and articles for the next day's data that I mean to send off. June 3rd, 1919. The rhododendron gave me such a bad night... I set to however and satisfactorily finished it though it took till after 12."

‘Farrer's illustrations, together with the field notes, botanical specimens and seeds which he collected, provided valuable information to the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, where the Regius Keeper, Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour, took a special interest in Sino-Himalayan plants. Farrer's interest in sending back attractive new plants with horticultural potential, however, was sometimes at odds with Balfour's desire for a comprehensive inventory of all the plants of the region. Farrer's collecting trips are particularly interesting when viewed in the context of the global plant exchanges which occurred during British Imperial rule. During this time crops and other plants were transplanted from then-native habitats to others throughout the Empire for a variety of economic, medical and scientific reasons. At a domestic level, too, whilst Farrer and other plant collectors introduced new species to British gardens, sentimental colonists took with them plants, and animals, which reminded them of home.’

Farrer's final voyage was to the mountains of Upper Burma, taking as his companion E.H.M Cox, who recorded the trip in 'Farrer's Last Journey, Upper Burma 1919-20' (1926). This expedition proved less horticulturally successful than Farrer's earlier trip to Kansu, largely because the climate of the Burma mountains had less in common with British conditions than that of Kansu.

Farrer died alone in 1920, probably of diphtheria, in the remote Minshan mountains of Upper Burma at the early age of 40 and was buried at Konglu.Farrer brought back plants from Asia that could be grown in a naturalistic style - not just by the rich who could afford expensive hothouses and personal gardeners. In the words of Farrer’s biographer, Nicola Shulman, "He brought rock-gardening into the hearts of the British people."

Farrer himself wrote:

"You're on an uncharted mountainside and you have to first of all find the Plant in the summer on the way up the mountain."

"Then in the autumn, you have to find the same plant - if it hasn't been eaten or trodden on - hope it's set seed and that the seeds haven't fallen yet - and this is just the start."

His lasting legacy is a spectacular display of plants from the Himalayas which are today growing in a wild display around Ingleborough. Himalayan rhododendron, bamboo and other unusual plants such as Lonicera syringantha and Rodgersia aesculifolia can be seen amongst Farrer’s Ingleborough display whilst in Clapham village itself Viburnum farreri and Potentilla fruticosa flourish.

Farrer was known as an eccentric and in one infamous incident, Farrer loaded a shotgun with seeds collected on his foreign travels, and fired them into a rock cliff and gorge near Clapham.

Plants named after Farrer

A number of plants are named after Farrer, Cox’s book 'The Plant Introductions of Reginald Farrer', published in 1930 describes Farrer's legacy of plants cultivated from seed collected by him.
* "Allium farreri" in the genus "Allium"
* "Amitostigma farreri" in the genus "Amitostigma"
* "Bulbophyllum farreri" in the genus "Bulbophyllum"
* "Codonopsis farreri" in the genus "Codonopsis"
* "Cypripedium farreri" in the genus "Cypripedium"
* "Gentiana farreri" in the genus "Gentiana"
* "Geranium farreri" in the genus "Geranium"
* "Picea farreri" in the genus "Picea"
* "Viburnum farreri" in the genus "Viburnum"

Biographies

* Nicola Shulman (2002) "A Rage for Rock Gardening: The Story of Reginald Farrer" (London: Short Books)
* E H M Cox (1930) "The plant introductions of Reginald Farrer" (London: New flora and silva Ltd.)

Notes

References

*cite web |url=http://plantfacts.ohio-state.edu/hort/history/094.html |title=Farrer, Reginald 1880-1920 |publisher=Ohio State University |accessdate=2007-05-29 |date=2002 |format= |work=
*cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/series3/gardening_shotgun_yorkshire_reginald_farrer.shtml |title=Inside Out - THE SHOTGUN GARDENER |publisher=BBC |accessdate=2007-05-31 |date=2003 |format= |work=
*cite news |first= Amanda |last=Hobson |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= REGINALD FARRER OF CLAPHAM |url= http://www.northcravenheritage.org.uk/nchtjournal/Journals/1992/J92A13.html |work= |publisher= North Craven Heritage Trust |date=1992 |accessdate=2007-06-07

Bibliography

* "The Garden of Asia" (1904)
* "My Rock Garden" (1907)
* "Alpines and Bog Plants" (1908)
* "In a Yorkshire Garden" (1909)
* "Among the Hills" (1910)
* "The Dolomites: King Laurin's Garden" (1913)
* "On the Eaves of the World" (1917)
* "The Rainbow Bridge" (1921)