ABSTRACT
Visitors arriving in nineteenth-century American cities frequently focused on the thriving industries, impressive architecture, and many amenities that marked these bustling metropolises, but often failed to appreciate the complex web of resources supporting these urban spaces. Few observers understood the “industrial gardens” accompanying urban development and the changing consumption habits of city dwellers. Knowledgeable gardeners, however, carefully observed the intensively cultivated plots and acres of greenhouses surrounding teeming urban areas, as well as market wagons mired in the traffic of city streets, riots of voluptuous produce offered up at market stalls, and blossoms in fashionable florists’ plate glass windows displayed like precious gems. In an ongoing symbiotic relationship, the city supported complex horticultural innovations that, in turn, facilitated ever denser urban spaces. Few gardeners understood this labyrinthine relationship better than Peter Henderson, a gifted and shrewd Scottish immigrant gardener. In the course of his long career, his multiple roles as private gardener, market gardener, seed dealer, author, and florist proved crucial to his financial success and influence. Attuned to the urbanization and industrialization that marked New York City and its neighbor, Jersey City, he intuitively grasped the underlying structures and efforts needed to succeed in an industrializing America.
