Loddiges

The Loddiges family (not uncommonly mis-spelt Loddige) managed one of the most notable of the eighteenth and nineteenth century plant nurseries that traded in and introduced exotic plants, trees, shrubs, ferns, palms and orchids into European gardens.

Founding and rise

The founder of the nursery was Joachim Conrad Loddiges (1738–1826). He was born in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony; his father Casper Lochlies was a gardener to a nobleman in Wrisbergholzen, near Hannover. Conrad trained in The Netherlands and emigrated to Britain at the age of 19 during the Seven Years' War to take up employment as gardener for Dr J. B. Silvester in the suburban village of Hackney, north of London. It was then that the family name was anglicised. When in his forties he married, he had not accumulated sufficient savings to expand a small seed business started by fellow German émigré John Busch, which he purchased, together with the good will of Busch's clientele in 1771 and had fully paid for by 1777, by which time he began to write to people all over the world, urging them to send him packets of seeds collected from trips to native hills, valleys and plains. From these small beginnings, its initial catalogue appearing in 1777 the nursery business gained a specialist market in Britain, and was increasingly able to attract clients from estates and botanical gardens throughout Europe.