In a letter to Sir Thomas Browne about his proposed magnum opus on gardens, John Evelyn stated his purpose: "to refine upon some particulars, especially concerning the ornaments of Gardens, which I shal endeavor so to handle that persons of all conditions and faculties, which delight in Gardens, may therein encounter something for their owne advantage."

In his Elysium Britannicum, or The Royal Gardens, Evelyn indeed produced a rich document, an assemblage of the horticultural knowledge and wisdom of the seventeenth century. An intriguing intellectual whom many have called a...