Strange Blooms

This 'wonderful book' (Jane Stevenson, Daily Telegraph) describes the remarkable lives and times of the John Tradescants, father and son, immortalized in Philippa Gregory's bestselling novels Earthly Joys and Virgin Earth. In seventeenth-century Britain, a new breed of 'curious' gardeners was pushing at the frontiers of knowledge and new plants were stealing into Europe from East and West. John Tradescant and his son were at the vanguard of this change - as gardeners, as collectors and above all as exemplars of an age that began in wonder and ended with the dawning of science. Jennifer Potter's book evokes vividly the drama of their lives and takes its readers to the edge of an expanding universe. Strange Blooms is a magnificent pleasure for gardeners and non-gardeners alike.'A tour de force... We owe Potter a huge debt of gratitude for the tireless research and sifting of evidence that have allowed the Tradescants and their great legacy to emerge so clearly at last.' Jenny Uglow, Sunday Times'A wonderful book... The Renaissance delight in the sheer protean variety of stuff that there is in the world has met its ideal presenter in Jennifer Potter's open pleasure in details.' Jane Stevenson, Daily Telegraph 'Forget Alan Titchmarsh et al - it's the Tradescants of Jennifer Potter's Strange Blooms we should really salute... Beautifully produced and meticulously researched.' Andrea Wulf, Observer 'Masterly... Jennifer Potter's achievement in Strange Blooms is to have breathed life back into the Tradescant name.' Alexander Urquhart, TLSBiography£9.99Cover images courtesy of the Museum of Garden History; the Guildhall Library; City of London, and the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.Cover design by Ghost. In seventeenth-century Britain, a new breed of 'curious' gardeners were pushing at the frontiers of knowledge and new plants were stealing into Europe from East and West. John Tradescant and his son were at the vanguard of this change - as gardeners, as collectors and above all as exemplars of an age that began in wonder and ended with the dawning of science. Jennifer Potter's book vividly evokes the drama of their lives and takes its readers to the edge of an expanding universe. Strange Blooms is a magnificent pleasure for gardeners and non-gardeners alike.This 'wonderful book' (Jane Stevenson, Daily Telegraph) describes the remarkable lives and times of the John Tradescants.

In seventeenth-century Britain, a new breed of 'curious' gardeners were pushing at the frontiers of knowledge and new plants were stealing into Europe from East and West. The man responsible for introducing many of the plants to Britain at that time was John Tradescant, whose passion for collecting sent him as far as Russian Archangel, the pirate strongholds of North Africa and the battlefields of France. Tradescant's only son John was his apprentice. Strange Blooms tells the Tradescants' story - as gardeners, as collectors and above all as exemplars of an age that began in wonder and ended with the dawning of science. Meticulously researched and vividly evoking the drama of their lives, Jennifer Potter's book takes its readers to the edge of an expanding universe. Strange Blooms is a magnificent pleasure for gardeners and non-gardeners alike.