Early Success

The Rockery at One Year Old:

According to E.H.M. Cox, an important turn-of-the-(20th) century plant hunter and garden writer who wrote Plant Hunting in China and the major bibliography on Reginald Farrer, there are seven stages in the life of a gardener: "First, the awakening of the realization that a flower is beautiful; second, the desire to possess flowers; third, the feeling that one must grow them and learn the rudiments of plant-cultivation; fourth, the joy that comes with early success; fifth, the despair when we are defeated by a plant or plants and the knowledge is forced upon us that one life is too short to encompass even a tithe of all there is to know about the cultivation of plants; sixth, the decision to follow one particular branch of horticulture; seventh and last, the arrival of the full-frown specialist in that particular branch." (From Cox's Foreword in Western American Alpines by Ira Gabrielson, 1932)