Victorian Conservatory Became Essential

March 18, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Victorian conservatory became essential –

Victorian garden fashion demanded several elements.

Plants that stood out became essential for their structure and color.

The list included ricinus, canna, yucca  – all with their bold leaves.

To grow and cultivate  plants during the winter a conservatory, attached to the house, became a must for all serious Victorian gardeners.

Conservatory as part of the house in this 1892 Parker and Wood Seed Catalog

Carter says in his book The Victorian Garden, “Eventually the conservatory became a Victorian cliché – a necessary attachment to any house of even modest pretentions, and often, no more than a place where pot plants could be brought in.”

Serious gardeners then cultivated orchids which demanded special growing conditions.

Eventually the middle class would also grow orchids in their version of that essential greenhouse or conservatory.

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Filed Under: English garden design, English Style, Garden history, Victorian

When Annuals Lost Their Appeal

March 11, 2019 by Leave a Comment

When annuals lost their appeal –

From the mid nineteenth century England encouraged gardening with beds of annuals.

The arrival of glorious summer plants from warmer climates like Africa, Asia, and South America had encouraged that fashion.

In the 1870s however garden writer William Robinson criticized the practice. He advocated for perennials and native plants in the summer garden.

The cost of growing in the greenhouse the necessary dozens of annuals became expensive.

Another issue became  the maintenance to keep the annual beds weed-free and trimmed to the proper height and width.

Perennials would reward the gardener with bloom year after year, Robinson wrote.

Growing  native plants would also reduce the expense of the annuals since they are readily available in local fields, mountains, and woods.

Tom Carter in his book The Victorian Garden writes about the inevitability of the demise of the extensive growing and maintaining of beds of annuals.

William Robinson

Robinson himself had once been an advocate of annuals but no longer.

He wrote the book The Wild Garden in which he proposed plants other than annuals for the summer garden.

Carter says, “The movement away from the true Victorian style during the last decade of the century reflected in, and partly brought about by Robinson, … was inevitable.

 “It has been maintained that bedding, with its emphasis on annuals and a limited number of perennials, caused gardeners to disregard old-fashioned plants, bringing some of them close to extinction.”

Today we continue to preach the gospel of native plants. 

It’s not that we can’t grow annuals. It’s that we also have beautiful native plants.

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Filed Under: English garden design, English Style, Garden fashion, Gardens of England, Native plants, Perennials, Victorian

CT Flower Show Features Stairway to Heaven

March 4, 2019 by 1 Comment

CT Flower Show features stairway to heaven –

A few days ago I drove to Hartford, Connecticut for the 38th Annual Connecticut Flower and Garden Show.

It was the best in years.

Outstanding exhibits made the trip worth while.

Aqua Scapes included a nine-foot stairway waterfall that seemed to drift from the clouds. The title of the exhibit “Stairway to Heaven” said it all.

It was truly a heavenly site with its many spring trees, shrubs, bulbs, and perennials.

Large stones filled much of the space. 

In the distance you could see a madonna statue, centered under a Japanese maple and surrounded by a bed of tulips.

A large cage next to the water fall housed a white dove.

All heavenly.

It was no surprise that this exhibit by Aqua Scapes won the Best of Show Award.

Exhibit by Aqua Scapes

 

Cafe des Fleur

Another fine exhibit also deserves mention. The Naugatuck Valley Community College presented a landscape design that transported you to downtown Paris in the spring.

A coffee shop called Cafe des Fleur stood to one side.

The exhibit included many spring flowers like hyacinths, crocus, tulips, and daffodils. Some were in containers while others appeared in beds that bordered the sidewalk. [below]

Cafe des Fleur

Ten Horticulture students designed this  exhibit. They grew the plants in the College’s greenhouse.

An apartment building stood next door to the coffee shop. The building’s entrance included several plants as well.

This beautiful exhibit was a simple statement of how flowers can enliven a sidewalk scene.

My drive was well worth the time it took to reach Hartford.

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Filed Under: Garden fashion, Garden style, gardening

Victorians Loved Cut Flowers

February 18, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Victorians loved cut flowers –

The Victorian period in the nineteenth century ushered in a love for cut flowers from the garden.

Here is a beautiful chromolithograph from William Rawson’s seed catalog of 1888 called ‘Gems from the Wild Garden.’ The image visualizes what a glorious choice of flowers for tea and lunch were available to the Victorians. [below]

Rawson Seed Company, Boston

In his book The Victorian Garden Tom Carter calls this love of cut flowers from that period ‘floristry.’

He writes, “Competition was the essence of floristry, and the spring and summer months were filled with shows held all over the country.”

The flower shows proved an outlet to show off flowers like roses and dahlias.

I remember on ‘Downton Abbey’ when Maggie Smith’s character said,
“My yellow rose won top prize at the county fair.”

Even in the cities Victorian gardeners took pride in floristry.

Carter writes, “Workers in the industrial towns took to floristry as about the only form of gardening open to them in the restricted spaces of urban living.”

Whether in country or city, Victorians encouraged floristry and so they enjoyed their cut flowers.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Annuals, English Style, gardening, Victorian

Victorian Garden Book

February 11, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Victorian garden book –

Last week I attended a meeting of the New England Hosta Society, a group I joined many years ago.

The meeting included a wonderful speaker who owns a local nursery.

The highlight of the meeting, however, was the item I won in the raffle.

To my surprise I won Tom Carter’s book The Victorian Garden.

I was familiar with this title when I placed my red ticket in the cup to bid on the book.

The bibliography and illustrations in the book indicate the English origin of the book. 

The book, however, was first published by Salem House, a member of the Merrimack Publishers Circle, Salem, New Hampshire in 1985.  R. J. Acford, Chichester, Sussex printed this edition.

The book details the development of the English Victorian garden in the nineteenth century.

Carter writes, “The range of plants available in nineteenth century Britain was constantly increasing as more and more specimens were sent home from abroad, and as colonial territories were opened up.”

The plants would include of course varieties from Asia and North America.

Look forward to reading this book during the cold weeks of winter still to come.

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Filed Under: English garden design, English Style, Garden history, History of English garden style, Victorian

English Garden Style May Not Work

February 4, 2019 by Leave a Comment

English garden style may not work –

Landscape architect Samuel Parsons, Jr. came from a long line of horticulturists. His family owned a popular late nineteenth century nursery in New York.

According to the American Architects Biographies, Parsons was a landscape architect who died February 3, 1923 in New York City. He was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1845. A former park commissioner, he was largely responsible for the development of Central Park and Riverside Drive in New York City. He also designed a 1,400 acre park in San Diego, California.

Parsons gives some sound gardening advice in his book Landscape Gardening (1891)

He warns about simply following a certain garden style, like the English.

Parsons writes, “We are learning that because an English or Scotch gardener tells us we should have a particular tree which has grown successfully in England, we are not necessarily to assume that horticultural skill, whether Scotch, or English, or French, must be able to conpass, in some occult way, its successful employment on American lawns.”

He was a great advocate for the classic lawn, sweeping down from the house.

No surprise that the lawns in Central Park took on that green beauty that Parsons orchestrated in his job as Superintendent of Parks in New York.

Parsons offered this advice in 1891.

Still makes sense today.

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Filed Under: English garden design, Garden history, Lawn, Victorian

Ordering Dalia Tubers

January 28, 2019 by 2 Comments

Ordering dahlia tubers –

Right now I am receiving garden catalogs, many with dahlias to sell.

In the past I have searched both on-line sources and catalogs to find a particular dahlia tuber that I wanted to plant.

Often no luck.

It seems to me it is better to choose from the selection offered than spend time looking for a particular variety. There are, after all, over 10,000 registered dahlias.

Dahlia ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ [Courtesy of White Flower Farm]

Dahlia History

American gardeners have been ordering dahlias since the early 1800s.

Nineteenth century Rochester, New York seed company owner James Vick (1818-1882) had over 500 dahlia varieties in his trial fields.

He sold named varieties and his own hybrids for that time.

The flower has had its ups and downs since the beginning.

Now you might say there is a Renaissance of interest in growing dahlias. We like everything about this flower. 

If the popular dahlia shows in September are any indicator, there are a lot of people today who love dahlias.

Price

The price of a dahlia tuber can vary quite a bit.

Take ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ as an example. With its dark leaves and bright red flowers, it is one of my favorite dahlias.

The least expensive online price for one tuber is $3.25, and the most expensive $11.95.

Quite a difference.

Vick offered ‘White Aster’  in his catalog of 1880 for 25 cents.

You can still buy ‘White Aster’ today, but, of course, at the current rate.

I can see why Vick wrote in his seed catalog: “The Dahlia is the grandest Autumn Flower we have.”

 

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Filed Under: Annuals, Bulbs, Flowers, Victorian

Nineteenth Century Style of Planting Shrubs

January 21, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Nineteenth century style of planting shrubs –

Soon the Weigela rosea [below] will burst with spring color in my New England garden.

This shrub came to America in 1848 from England. Three years earlier British plant hunter Robert Fortune had found it in China. He introduced it to the English garden.

This Weigela grows right outside my front door. [photo by Ralph Morang]

Walter Elder, a nineteenth century Philadelphia horticulturalist, wrote many articles for nurseryman Thomas Meehan’s popular magazine Gardener’s Monthly, published in the same city.

In the 1865 issue of GM, Elder wrote about shrubs in the landscape.

He said ”The modern is the most  admirable and ennobling mode of embellishing large grounds with flowering shrubbery, namely massing them in groups of various dimensions and forms. All sharp points are avoided. Even at the junction of two roads or paths, sharp, projecting points are rounded and made blunt, if a group of shrubbery is to be planted there.”

He continues, “Where there is a fine view in the distance to be seen from the mansion, it would not do to plant trees to hide it, but the lawn can be ornamented with groups of shrubs.”

Seed company and nursery owners in their catalogs, books, and magazines taught America landscape principles.

In this case they instructed home gardeners on how to plant shrubs in the English picturesque or gardenesque, or as they called it, the ‘modern’ style.

 

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Filed Under: English Style, Garden fashion, Garden history, Gardens of England, Victorian

America’s Enduring Home Landscape Style

January 14, 2019 by Leave a Comment

America’s enduring home landscape style –

Several years ago I owned a house which included two side-by-side rental units.

I thought it would be a a good idea to include plants along the front porch. I planted the old-fashioned spirea prunifolia called ‘BridalWreath.’

Of course at the time I had no idea it could grow to nine feet.

I also planted a young arbor vitae.

Little did I know that I was following the American tradition of foundation planting, or planting along the walls of the front of the house.

In his book From Yard to Garden: The Domestication of America’s Home Grounds landscape arhictect Christopher Grampp  writes about the origin of foundation planting, an American invention for the home landscape.

He says, “By the 1930s, lawns and foundation planting had so firmly established themselves in American front yards that it was rare to see other styles.”

Since then the front home landscape has included the lawn and foundation plantings.

In 1901 the Rawson Seed Company from Boston advertised its grass seed with this image from Quincy, Massachusetts. [below] Notice the front lawn and plantings near the house.

The lawn photo in the 1901 Rawson catalog

The garden industry continued for decades to promote this kind of front yard with its lawn and foundation planting.

Grampp writes, “Nearly all garden design advice in books, newspapers, and magazines were now recommending shrubs against the facade of the house and lawns running to the street.”

No surprise that American homes shared this sameness in landscape from California to Maine – even to this very day.

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Filed Under: Garden fashion, Garden history, Lawn

Media Drives Garden Industry

January 7, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Media drives garden industry –

We gardeners like to think we are original in planning and installing a garden space.

In an environment of newspapers, magazines, books, and, of course, social media that is not possible because we are surrounded by media messages in both advertising and editorial content.

Since the 1890s the media have become the major influence on our ideas about gardening.

Quaker OatsAt the end of the nineteenth century people wanted standardized products that came from the nation’s factories, whether clothing, shoes, or food.  Even seed company and nursery owners illustrated their large operations in a chromolithograph included in the pages of the catalog.  A customer could then see the trial fields, the building which made boxes for the company’s many orders, and, of course, the multi-storied factory that served as the seed company or nursery headquarters.

People didn’t want just any oat meal.  They wanted Quaker Oats.

And they got that, and lots of other standardized products.

People also wanted a garden like the one illustrated in the garden catalog, which spread across the country in the millions from the many seed companies and nurseries, operating as the modern business they had become.

The Philadelphia seedsman Robert Buist might have felt the power of the media on his business when he wrote in 1857: “Nurserymen have to cater for the wants of their customers, and they wish everything that receives a newspaper puff, however indifferent in quality–so that we go on increasing in all sorts of varieties.”

Garden Catalogs

No surprise then that the yearly catalog from the seed company or nursery helped people to choose seeds and bulbs for the flower garden.

This Smith catalog from Worcester, Massachusetts in 1898 provides an example from that period of the vibrant Victorian garden.

Because everyone was ordering the same seeds and bulbs there was a certain sameness in plant choice and garden design.

People wanted to conform to the norms of the culture.

Thus standardized gardens appeared everywhere.

It reminds me of the ‘ready garden’ you can buy today. All the seeds are embedded in a cloth that you simply lay on the prepared soil and water.

Not only has the garden vendor given you a garden. That person has also provided the design and the seeds.

All you need to do is water and watch it grow.

 

 

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Filed Under: Advertising, Garden fashion, Garden history, Garden style
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