Reginald
Farrer was born in a rather well-to-do family at
his parents old home in Yorkshire, England. Due to a
speech defect he was educated at home. 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. He went to Japan where he lived for
eight months and wrote of his adventures in The
Garden of Asia, 1904.
He used his home in Tokyo to explore in China,
Korea, and Japan. Returning to England he attempted to
become a novelist and poet but these publications were
only mediocre. He eventually realized 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. Next he went plant hunting in Tibet
and the Province of Kansu in China. The adventures and
successes of the Purdom-Farrer expedition were
published in On the Eaves of the World (1917) and The
Rainbow Bridge (1921). He died in 1920 on a plant
expedition with E.H.M. Cox in the field while
collecting in China and was buried at Konglu.
