Nehrling’s Early Florida Gardens

First published in the 1940s as My Garden in Florida, these two newly revised and edited volumes by Henry Nehrling (1853-1929) present a remarkable record of Florida’s botanical history and a delightful mixture of observations on the central and south Florida climate and growing conditions. His association with writers, scientists, and travelers presents a window into the gardening community of his era, and his intriguing mixture of subjects furnishes an important source of information for those interested in Florida’s social, botanical, and environmental history. A noted authority on tropical and subtropical plant lore, Nehrling wrote with passion in a style rich in detail and free from technical jargon, and his plant descriptions and horticultural information are as valuable today as when first written. In his gardens at Gotha near Orlando and at Naples (now Caribbean Gardens), Nehrling introduced into cultivation and popularized many plant species that have since become common in Florida landscapes. His articles provide invaluable first-hand accounts of the environment in his time, descriptions of natural conditions, and observations of areas no longer undisturbed. More than history, however, these books describe the beautiful tropical and subtropical flora that make Florida the Garden of Eden as we know it today. Nehrling’s Early Florida Gardens describes his arrival in Florida, Florida’s climate and soils, the planting of his first garden and his mistakes and failures, the flatwoods, the hammocks, epiphytes, bamboos, magnolias, live oaks, Japanese and Chinese evergreens, the camphor tree, conifers, the myrtle family, oleanders, cycads, bromeliads, air plants, orchids, shade trees and flowering trees, fig trees, sacred trees, vines and sweet-scented plants, flowering shrubs, oleasters, annuals, perennials, and bulbs.