This paper explores lifehistory/lifegeography of English botanist, Reginal Farrer (1880-1920). Farrer encountered Japanese gardens in Japan in 1903 and wrote The Garden of Asia : Impressions from Japan in 1904. I discuss this work in relation to his general ideas about rock gardens : My Rock Garden (1907). He had been greatly influenced by his encounter with Japanese gardens in Japan, where he developed his idea of rock gardens. I explore the landscape management of Reginald Ferrer's home at Clapham, Ingleborough, Yorkshire. I consider how Farrar's ideas on rock gardens may be seen as the creation of a "hybrid" garden, while the main stream of Japanese gardens at the age of fashion in Edwardian Britain is the introduction and copy of an "authentic" Japanese garden. Farrer was not interested in copying Japanese garden design, rather he was interested in creating "natural" rock gardens using exotic alpine plants in the British environment. His ideas of rock garden and his estate managment around Clapham village can be seen as an attempt to create a "hybrid" landscape garden in Britain.