Garden history Archives - American Gardening

Nineteenth Century Petunia Continues Its Popularity

November 11, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Nineteenth century petunia continues its popularity –

The petunia, first brought from Argentina to England in 1831, provides a powerful example of the importance of hybridizing in the garden industry.

We continue to grow petunias, and, in fact, they are among the top sellers for such prominent growers as Proven Winners.

It is the same petunia from the nineteenth century, but hybridizers have had a field day with this flower.

In 1894 Boston seed company owner W. W. Rawson wrote about the petunia in his catalog.

Rawson wrote, “The brilliancy and variety of their colors, combined with the duration of their blooming period, render them invaluable.”

Today the petunia comes in many colors, and the flowers are either single and funnel shaped, ruffled, or doubled.

Since the Wave petunia first appeared on the market in 1995, the petunia world has not been the same since.

According to Wave’s blog, a Japanese brewery bred the first Wave petunia.

“Beer and wine companies often employ horticulturists who grow plants for the many flavors and components that go into making their products. Back in the 1990s, this particular company was exploring opportunities for wine-grape breeding when it uncovered a vigorous spreading petunia growing wild like a weed. “

And so the Wave petunia was born.

The little white flower from South America took the English garden world of the nineteenth century by storm

It continues to do so to this day.

Rawson once said, “It was only a few years ago that they were comparatively unknown, and now no garden is considered complete without them.”

Here is a petunia called Supertunia ‘Pretty Much Picasso’ from Proven Winners in my backyard. [below]

Supertunia ‘Pretty Much Picasso’ on the table in my back yard

How many petunias did you grow this summer?

Filed Under: Annuals, Flowers, Garden history, Seed business, Victorian

Jane Loudon Encouraged Women Gardeners

October 28, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Jane Loudon encouraged women gardeners –

In the first part of the nineteenth century John Claudius Loudon became the voice for the gardener. He wrote several books, edited a magazine Gardener’s Monthly, painted, and also designed landscapes.

When he wrote something about gardening, everyone took it seriously.

He married author Jane Weber, age 23, when he was 47.

Jane, a writer herself, helped him with his garden writing, but first she had to learn about gardening. She was a novice in gardening.

Her husband became the teacher, though not always with the greatest of patience, as Geoffrey Taylor writes in his book Some Ninteeth Century Gardeners.

After he died, Jane continued her own garden writing career, publishing several books.

Above all, she supported women working in the garden.

In her book The Ladies’ Companion to the Flower Garden she encouraged women to garden.

She wrote, “I should recommend all persons fond of gardening, and especially ladies, who have sufficient leisure, to manage their gardens themselves, with the assistance of a man to perform the more laborious operations.”

Men could help where needed. She said, “It sometimes happens that a man-servant in the family, who is not overburdened with indoor duties, will answer the purpose; but it is generally preferred to employ a man who has been brought up as a gardener.”

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

Jane Loudon Lists Familiar Flowers

October 21, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Jane Loudon lists familiar flowers –

Recently I came across a nineteenth century book on gardening by writer and gardener Jane Loudon (1807-1858).

Loudon (or ‘Mrs. Loudon’ as the book’s title page lists her) wrote the book The Ladies’ Companion to the Flower Garden to show that women could venture into the world of gardening with many benefits. They would profit from physical exercise and at the same time learn about the world of plants.

This is the title page of the book. [below]

Courtesy of State Library of South Australia – Library number: 635.9 L886.7

The book, edited like a dictionary or encyclopedia, lists various plants and garden topics.

What I found most fascinating is that this book from 1846 lists annuals for the garden that we still grow today.

The same plants appeared in the seed catalogs of Rochester, New York’s James Vick (1812-1882) from the 1860s.

Vick did not search out new plants, but accepted the traditional varieties that people were already growing.

One example is the petunia, brought to England from Brazil in 1832.

Loudon writes, “Perhaps no plants have made a greater revolution in floriculture than the Petunias. Only a few years ago they were comparatively unknown, and now there is not a garden, or even a window, that can boast of flowers at all, without one.”

The petunia took a slot in the top five of Vick’s favorite annuals.

To this day the petunia assumes a central spot in the garden.

Proven Winners recently listed their most popular annuals for 2019. The petunia, in the form of their current hybrid called ‘supertunia,’ became the grower’s best seller.

Loudon also writes about other familar annuals. The morning glory, the nasturtium, sweet pea, and geranium all appear in her book.

It seems that the nursery business keeps offering the same plants that have been part of the garden for decades. The only difference, of course, is the constant search they undertake to find the latest hybrid.

Jane Loudon did more than simply alert the gardener to what plants are important. She was creating the gardener’s palette.

Filed Under: Annuals, English garden design, English Style, Flowers, Garden fashion, Garden history, Victorian

In Search of a Blue Dahlia

October 14, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

In search of a blue dahlia –

I have often heard that there is no blue dahlia.

Last year I planted a blue dahlia I bought at the market Stop and Shop. The bright photo on the front of the box depicted a very blue colored dahlia. The name of the variety was ‘Blue Bell.’ I had to buy it.

On the website Gardenia.net I read a bit about this dahlia.

The site said, “Produces truly beautiful purple-blue flowers adorned with broad petals that fade to lavender-blue.

“The fully double flowers, up to 4-6 inches…are normally large and the plants easily top 40 inches tall, although there are even taller varieties.”

I thought what a find this was to come across a blue dahlia in a local supermarket.

It did not bloom last year, but I still packed it up to store for the winter.

It bloomed this year. As you can see, it is not really a pure blue look.

It looks more like a purple. [below]

Dahlia expert and writer Bill McClaren wrote the book Encyclopedia of Dahlias.

He says, “If a bloom in the red class has the least hint of blue in it, it is classified as purple.”

Other dahlias in my garden

I planted several dahlias this summer.

When I was walking around the garden last week, I realized that the front door was framed with dahlias.

There I saw on the right the tall red ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ and on the left in the back the yellow ‘Sunburst Nelson.’

This photo of the front steps highlights the colors of both yellow and red in these two dahlias. [below].

Dahlias frame this view on my front steps.

It was fun to experiment with a blue dahlia, but these two faithful varieties work just fine for me.

James Vick (1818-1882), seed company owner from Rochester, New York, loved dahlias. No surprise that he wrote in 1878, “The dahlia is ouir best autumn flower. We can depend upon it until frost, no matter how long delayed.”

Filed Under: Annuals, Garden history, Garden style, gardening, Nursery business, Seed business, Victorian

Darwin’s Research on Earthworms

October 7, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Darwin’s research on earthworms –

All gardeners treasure the soil, or at least try to do so.

Both the goal and the reward as you can see from this photo is wonderful, healthy soil.

One way to ensure quality soil is to rotate what you plant in it.

A local dahlia farm is changing its field next summer to a cover crop. They will plant the dahlia tubers in another field not too far away.

Below is an article about current research at Cranfield University that credits the cover crop change with highlighting the importance of earthworms.

Cover Crops Can Triple the Amount of Earthworms in Soil

This article from Cranfield University discusses new research on the soil.

Among his research projects nineteenth century’s great scientist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) devoted time to study the importance of earthworms.

In his book Darwin’s Backyard author James T. Costa writes, “There are 4,100 or so described earthworm species.”

Darwin sought to understand the role of worms in producing soil. They, he realized, create the soil. Costa writes, “There was more to worms than even he [Darwin] realized.”

The experiments that Darwin carried out were often with what he found on his own property. Worms were no exception.

Costa wrties, “Darwin truly succeeded in proving the greatness of the power of worms.”

Stock Photos

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

When Women Became Their Own Gardener

September 23, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

When women became their own gardener –

Working in the garden demands various tasks, including digging and raking. Let us not forget of course weeding, deadheading, and pruning.

We all know that the person who performs gardening tasks could be a man or a woman.

The role of a woman as gardener, however, evolved by the end of the nineteenth century.

Jennifer Davies in her book The Victorian Flower Garden shows how the most famous garden writer of the early ninetenth century John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843) advocated for women.

She writes that in 1838 “Loudon thought that this skill [laying out a flower garden] was within the campacity of every woman who could cut out and put together parts of a female dress.”

By 1874 English gardener Sophia Orne Johnson was writing in her book Every Woman Her Own Flower Gardener, “A small set of tools, comprising a rake and hoe on one handle, a trowel, and a spade, are very essential. With their aid much light work can be accomplished without calling upon Mr. O’Shovelem…

“With these implements every woman can be her own gardener – and not only raise all the flowers she may desire, but also contribute a large share of the vegetables that are always welcomed at the table, during both summer and winter.”

American garden writer Ida D. Bennett says in her book The Making of a Flower Garden (1919) “The role of the male in the woman’s flower garden was that of the animated shovel, or as Sophia Johnson called him in the nineteenth century ‘Mr. Shovelem.’ “

“By the end of the century and into the twentieth century most suburban women did not expect to do the digging and other heavy labor, but most of them did plan their own gardens and do much of the planting, weeding, staking, and other tasks”, as Beverly Seaton writes in her wonderful article “Gardening Books for the Commuter’s Wife, 1900-1937.”

Women too eventually became the major garden writers for other women.

Seaton says, “The writers Americanized the garden advice of Gertrude Jekyll and Wiliam Robinson.”

By then women had become their own gardener.

Filed Under: Annuals, Bulbs, Flowers, Garden history, Victorian

Darwin Studied Climbing Plants

September 16, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Darwin studied climbing plants –

English scientist Charles Darwin (1808-1882) was able to see a oneness in nature.

For many years that idea motivated both his research and his writing.

He likened climbing plants to animals according to James T. Costa’s book Darwin’s Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory.

Costa writes: “Seemingly animal-like in their powers of movement and sense perception, climbing plants too point to the fundamental unity of plants and animals.”

In my garden I planted a vine of hops along one wall of my garden shed. Each summer the vine reaches out to spread its leaves.

Darwin saw in hops an example of movement by the plant called twining.

Here is a photo of the hop vine in my garden. [below] It is the variety by Proven Winners called ‘Summer Shandy.”

Darwin pointed out that these plants have a certain power of movement.

He said, “It has often been vaguely asserted that plants are distinguished from animals by not having the power of movement. It should rather be said that plants acquire and display this power only when it is of some advantage to them.”

Filed Under: Garden history, gardening, Nature, Victorian

Garden Urn at Portland’s Victoria Mansion

September 9, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Garden urn at Portland’s Victoria Mansion –

The Victorians loved to set an urn with plants on the front lawn.

Therese O’Malley writes in Keywords in American Landscape Design “In the context of the designed landscape, treatise writers often strongly recommended that the vase be placed on top of a pedestal or plinth so that it would be easily visible.”

Right now you can see this urn on the front lawn outside of the Victoria Mansion in Portland, Maine. [below]

Though it has no pedestal, it still represents Victorian garden design.

Andrew Jackson Downing, America’s mid nineteenth century’s most important landscape designer, recommended that a single urn be placed on the lawn.

A bit later Rochester, New York seed company owner James Vick (1818-1882) proposed in his garden magazine that the urn include three kinds of plants.

You needed a tall center plant like a canna or a yucca.

Then you included a plant that filled the middle section like a geranium.

Finally you introduced a plant trailing down, but not touching the ground.

Vick included this image in his magazine Vick’s Illustrated Monthly. [below]

Notice the choice in each plant to give that special look that a garden urn on the lawn needed.

In his business Vick promoted flowers for the garden, and the urn was one of the places to introduce such flowers.

Collector Barbara Israel wrote the book about landscape ornaments called Antique Garden Ornament: Two Centuries of American Taste.”

She says.”In the minds of even the most fervent proponent of naturalistic design (in which the [garden] ornament was severely limited), the urn was admired as an object of taste and refinement.”

However, O’Malley, reflecting Downing’s writing in 1849, cautioned that “ornamental vases were often regarded as works of art…and should not be reduced to the level of ‘a mere garden flower-pot.’ “

Filed Under: Annuals, Garden fashion, Garden history, Lawn, Seed business, Victorian

Coleus Varieties Still Abound

September 2, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

The battle between perennial advocates and those who loved to plant annuals stretched into the twentieth century both in England and America.

In 1905 Helena Rutherford Ely wrote in her book Another Hardy Garden Book, “Would that the Coleus might vanish from the land.”

Annuals, like the coleus, had been a major part of the garden since the 1850s.

So annuals were not going to go away without a fight. Even today that is the case. There are more beautiful coleus on the market than ever.

In its catalog of 1895 the seed company W. R. Shelmire from Avondale, Chester Co., Pa. boasted that the company offered seventy-five or more varieties of coleus.

In a speech to an international horticultural group In 1892 in Ontario the Cornell botanist and writer L. H. Bailey cautioned about the drive to increase newer varieties of plants. He questioned their relevance.

Bailey said, “There are more varieties of all plants in cultivation now than at any previous time.”

Then he said, “The question which you all desire to ask me is whether all this increase represents progress. Many poor varieties have been introduced.”

In other words, how many coleus do we need?

Rosy Dawn Gardens, a coleus growing specialist, says today there are hundreds of varieties of coleus, many of them on the market.

I personally like the coleus and always include it in my garden.

Here is a container of coleus on my deck this summer. [below] Loved the lime, yellow, and green combination from the first moment I saw this plant at a local Home Depot. It’s name is ‘Main Street River Walk’.

Coleus ‘Main Street River Walk’ on my deck right now.

So what can we make of the situation?

Proven Winners, a major grower of annuals, shrubs and perennials, offers twenty-eight varieties of coleus on its website.

Breeders continue to offer newer varieties and we choose the ones that work for us.

Filed Under: Advertising, Annuals, Garden history, Nursery business, Seed business, Victorian

Victorians Suffered Orchid Mania

August 26, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Victorians suffered orchid mania –

You have heard about tulip mania in the seventeenth century and perhaps even dahlia mania in the early nineteenth century.

In 1894 the London magazine Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art published an article entitled “The Romance of Orchid Collecting” about the sickness called orchid mania in late Victorian England.

Collectors were going crazy over the newest and latest orchids, in spite of the many dangers involved in hunting for orchids.

Earlier in the century Charles Darwin had done research on orchids. Historian James T. Costa mentions the mania in his book Darwin’s Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory. He writes, “Victorian orchid collectors suffered this form of madness.”

The Chambers’s article discussed the trials, tribulations, murder and mayhem that resulted from the hunt for orchids.

“A plant no bigger than a tulip bulb has been sold for many times its weight in gold.”

That someone could become so obsessed with a particular plant is probably not surprising if you consider plant collecting as both a hobby and current fashion.

Darwin, however, was interested in orchids because they cross pollinated.

His interest was scientific.

In the course of Darwin’s investigation into flower structure and pollination, he started a line of orchid research in the 1840s.

Costa does not, however, make any mention of Darwin suffering from orchid mania, probably because that ‘illness’ came later in the century.

Darwin, too, was more interested in plant experiments than plant collecting.

And so, you might say, the orchid mania bug never bit him.

Photo from my Florida trip. You can see orchids on this tree in the front yard. [*Thanks to FNGLA garden tour*.]

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