Gerard's descriptions of the most loved English garden flowers are perhaps too well known to quote, and therefore I give only the following: "The Plant of Roses, though it be a shrub full of prickes, yet it hath beene more fit and convenient to have placed it with the most glorious flowers of the world than to inserte the same here among base and thornie shrubs; for the rose doth deserve the chiefest and most principall place among all flowers whatsoever being not only esteemed in his beautie, vertue and his fragrance and odoriferous smell, but also because it is the honor and ornament of our English Scepter, as by the coniunction appeereth in the uniting of those two most royal houses of Lancaster and Yorke. Which pleasant flowers deserve the chiefest place in crowns and garlands. The double white sort doth growe wilde in many hedges of Lancashire in great abundance, even as briers do with us in these southerly parts, especially in a place of the countrey called Leyland, and in the place called Roughfoorde not far from Latham. The distilled water of roses is good for the strengthening of the hart and refreshing of the spirits and likewise in all things that require a gentle cooling. The same being put in iunketting dishes, cakes, sawces and many other pleasant things, giveth a fine and delectable taste. It bringeth sleepe which also the fresh roses themselves promote through their sweete and pleasant smell."
Like most gardeners Gerard was an optimist. It is wonderful enough to think of the rare, white thyme growing in the heart of London, but think of the courage of trying to raise dates in the open! "of the which," Gerard tells us (in no wise downcast by his numerous failures), "I have planted many times in my garden and have growne to the height of three foot, but the frost hath nipped them in such sort that soone after they perished, notwithstanding my industrie by covering them, or what else I could do for their succour." And does it not make one feel as eager as Gerard himself when one finds, under water-mallows, that, though exotic plants, "at the impression hereof I have sowen some seeds of them in my garden, expecting the successe." The mere catalogue of the plants in Gerard's own wonderful garden fills a small book, and scattered through the Herbal we find numerous references to it, unfortunately too lengthy to quote here.