An Earthly Paradise

the true plant enthusiast is so much absorbed in this beautiful world of ours that he finds no time for sordid and valueless pleasures and for morbid dissipations. Nothing ennobles the human soul more, elevates it more, electrifies it more, than to be surrounded by and associated with nature's beauties.

every community in florida, every town and city, should not only embellish the streets and gardens, but should also supply the means to employ educated gardeners to lay out interesting and beautiful public places where people can rest and dream and enjoy the alluring surroundings.

Sometimes Nehrling thought the forces of preservation would prevail, but at other times he lamented that too much had already been lost. Always he took a strong stand against indiscriminate development:.

It is high time, however, that steps be taken to preserve what still remains.. And this should be done now, before it is too late-before the ax of the woodsman destroys the beauty spots of a most alluring and subtropical landscape. Many of our dense Cypress swamps should never be destroyed by the grubbing hoe and the shovel of the ditch digger.

[In Florida's future] i see residences, built more or less in the colonial style-elaborate modern winter homes and architecturally fine villas-homes where cultured and refined people have taken up their abode. Wonderful tropical gardens surround these homes.

it has taken nature centuries to create this beauty. After it has been destroyed no power in the world can bring it back.

Nehrling's writings, edited by Dr. Robert W. Read and published by the University Press of Florida, are available at major bookstores. Nehrling's Plants, People and Places in Early Florida includes a biographical essay about Nehrling by Naples landscape architect and researcher David Driapsa, who is working on a history of landscape architecture and pioneer gardens in Southwest Florida. He is using his pen, as he says, to preserve our area's historic landscapes. Driapsa is on the board of directors at the Edison-Ford Winter Estates Foundation and is chairman-elect of the Historic Preservation Group for the Washington, D.C.-based American Society of Landscape Architects.