David Wheeler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1945 |
| Occupation(s) | Gardener, writer and journalist |
| Known for | Hortus |
| Awards | Veitch Memorial Medal |
| Website | https://www.hortus.co.uk |
David Wheeler (1945) is a British gardener, writer and journalist. [1] He founded the literary gardening quarterly Hortus in 1987 and continues as its editor. [2] In 2009 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded him their Gold Veitch Memorial Medal. [3]
Wheeler was born in the Cotswolds and lived there until the age of 11, when the family moved to his mother's home town on the Hampshire coast. With an early interest in plants and gardens, he bought Amateur Gardening and Popular Gardening, "concealing them the best I could - boys in the late Fifties and swinging Sixties didn't buy gardening magazines," he told the Oldie. [4]
His wage-earning jobs included a variety works in the Merchant Navy (as a runaway teenager), and with a big-selling local newspaper, the Observer, the Spectator, the RSPCA and freelance jobbing gardener. [5] [6] In 1987, Wheeler founded the gardening quarterly Hortus without any public subsidy or support. [7] Marking its 25 years in 2012, the Washington Post wrote, "Hortus is the size of a slim paperback but printed on heavy, ivory colored stock and illustrated with line drawings and wood engravings... It produces tactile and aesthetic pleasures once taken for granted and now made acute by their rarity. Wheeler has a motto that Hortus 'is for gardeners who read and readers who garden'." [8] With more than 2,000 subscribers, it has been listed by The Telegraph as one of the best gardening magazines to read. [9]
In 1993, Wheeler founded the quarterly Convivium: The Journal of Good Eating (dedicated to the memory of his friend the food writer Elizabeth David CBE), sharing the same production values as Hortus . It ran for just two years – all eight issues now being highly sought-after collectors' items. [10] [11]
Wheeler and his partner, Simon Dorrell, moved to Bryan's Ground, an Arts and Crafts house near Presteigne, Powys, where they created an extensive garden featuring yew and box topiary, formal parterres, canals, wisteria-garlanded terraces and several buildings and follies created by Simon. [12] It has been described as one of the 10 best secret gardens in Britain by Country Life . [13] [14] The Telegraph described it as 'an Edwardian idyll,' [5] while the BBC Gardens Illustrated called it an "idyllic, quintessentially English garden". [15] [16]
In his Who's Who entry David claims to have had no education. Under hobbies, he wrote "Chasing the ghosts of Ottoman gardeners", reflecting his interest in and many visits to the parks and gardens of Istanbul and along the Bosphorus. [17]
In 2009 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded him their coveted Gold Veitch Memorial Medal in recognition of services given in the advancement of science and practice of horticulture. [18]
Wheeler contributes frequently to several other British and foreign newspapers and periodicals. [19] He now lives and gardens near the sea in Carmarthenshire and takes a special interest in hydrangeas, Iris sibirica , Japanese maples, auriculas and clematis. [20]
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity.
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, formally known as the Great Spring Show, is a garden show held for five days in May by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in Chelsea, London. Held at Chelsea since 1912, the show is attended by members of the British royal family.
Alan Fred Titchmarsh HonFSE is an English gardener and broadcaster. After working as a professional gardener and a gardening journalist, he became a writer, and a radio and television presenter.
Gertrude Jekyll was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote over 1000 articles for magazines such as Country Life and William Robinson's The Garden. Jekyll has been described as "a premier influence in garden design" by British and American gardening enthusiasts.
William Robinson: was an Irish practical gardener and journalist whose ideas about wild gardening spurred the movement that led to the popularising of the English cottage garden, a parallel to the search for honest simplicity and vernacular style of the British Arts and Crafts movement, and were important in promoting the woodland garden. Robinson is credited as an early practitioner of the mixed herbaceous border of hardy perennial plants, a champion too of the "wild garden", who vanquished the high Victorian pattern garden of planted-out bedding schemes. Robinson's new approach to gardening gained popularity through his magazines and several books—particularly The Wild Garden, illustrated by Alfred Parsons, and The English Flower Garden.
John Claudius Loudon was a Scottish botanist, garden designer and author. He was the first to use the term arboretum in writing to refer to a garden of plants, especially trees, collected for the purpose of scientific study. He was married to Jane Webb, a fellow horticulturalist, and author of science-fiction, fantasy, horror, and gothic stories.
Organic horticulture is the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants by following the essential principles of organic agriculture in soil building and conservation, pest management, and heirloom variety preservation.
Sir Roderic Victor Llewellyn, 5th Baronet, is a British baronet, garden designer, journalist, author, and television presenter. He had an eight-year relationship with Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II.
George Don was a Scottish botanist and plant collector.
Hugh Eric Allan Johnson is an English journalist, author, editor, and expert on wine. He is considered the world's best-selling wine writer. A wine he tasted in 1964, a 1540 Steinwein from the German vineyard Würzburger Stein, is considered one of the oldest to have ever been tasted.
Narcissus poeticus, the poet's daffodil, poet's narcissus, nargis, pheasant's eye, findern flower or pinkster lily, was one of the first daffodils to be cultivated, and is frequently identified as the narcissus of ancient times. It is also often associated with the Greek legend of Narcissus. It is the type species of the genus Narcissus and is widely naturalised in North America.
Mirabel Osler was an English writer and garden designer. Her memoir A Gentle Plea for Chaos (1989), based on her experiences in her garden in Shropshire, was said to send "a blast of fresh air through the stuffy rooms of the English gardening world when it was first published."
Christopher "Christo" Hamilton Lloyd, OBE was an English gardener and a gardening author of note, as the 20th-century chronicler for thickly planted, labour-intensive country gardening.
The Veitch Memorial Medal is an international prize issued annually by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).
David Bowman was a British plant collector who, in 1866, was sent by James Veitch & Sons to collect in Brazil. The species Dieffenbachia bowmanii is named after him.
Alys Fowler is a British horticulturist and journalist. She was a presenter on the long-running BBC television programme Gardeners' World.
Nick Meers is a British landscape photographer and is the co-author of many published books that include his photography.
Yvonne Skargon (1931-2010), was a British wood engraver, watercolorist, and typographer who was best known for her work related to botanical and culinary subjects.
Hortus is a quarterly journal covering gardens and horticulture, privately published in the United Kingdom. The journal was founded in 1987 by David Wheeler.
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