Published by Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, “All About Flowers” shows how Vick was an influencer before the term was in vogue. He didn’t just sell seeds and flowers. In his seed catalogues and then in his monthly magazine, he sold people on the value of flowers, the importance of flowers, the moral purpose of flowers.
“The love and care of flowers is one of the few pleasures that improve alike the head and the heart,” Vick wrote in 1880. “It is a pleasure that brings no pain, a sweet without a snare.”
The flowery language (apologies for the pun) is typical of Vick, for he was a writer before he was a seed merchant. Born in England in 1818, he is said to have been a boyhood friend of Charles Dickens. He came to the United States in 1833 and began work as a printer.