Garden history Archives - American Gardening

Japanese Knotweed Jumped the Wall

February 18, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Did you know that Japanese knotweed jumped the wall?

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries English gardeners hosted exotics.

They took great satisfaction in growing plants that flooded the country from Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Plant hunters then searched the globe for worthwhile garden plants.

There were various kinds of plants, including vines. One such entry was Japanese knotweed.

Unfortunately, Japanese knotweed became an unwanted invasive species.

Garden historian Stephen Harris writes about this vine in his book Planting Paradise: Cultivating the Garden 1500-1900.

Harris says, “Once an exotic plant has ‘jumped the wall’ it can have profound effects and often very difficult to control.”

The example he cites is Japanese knotweed. [below]

[Thanks to: WASHINGTON STATE
Noxious Weed Control Board]
*Polygonum Cuspidata,* Japanese Knotweed

Harris says, “Japanese knotweed [is] a species which has now spread over much of the UK following the flurry of interest it aroused in the mid-nineteenth century.”

It is listed by the World Conservation Union as one of the world’s worst invasive species.

Botanical gardens, like Boston’s Arnold Arboretum, still search the world, especially China, for plants that will grow in US gardens.

Today we know a lot more about invasive plants than we did when Japanese knotweed first arrived in England in 1850.

Filed Under: Garden history, Gardens of England, Victorian

Winter Appeal of Garden Catalogs

February 10, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

The cold, snow, and ice sometimes get to me.

I know that feeling also makes me appreciate the garden catalog.

Right now a catalog appears in my mailbox every few days. I love them.

This week I came across a wonderful article in the English magazine The Living Age from January 3, 1914. The name of the article is “On Flower Catalogues” by Jessie Fielding Marsh.

Marsh delights in the arrival of the garden catalog at her doorstep.

Here is a seed catalog from that time. Look at the warm, rich colors on the cover. This is probably the kind of catalog that would have come to her door.

Title: Catalogue of Seeds. Source: Front Cover, Nursery catalogue, Richard Smith & Co. 1898

She writes, “Catalogues are for grey days, dark days, when our outlook on life is a sad one, when our plants lie under the earth and there seems no prospect of any return of color and warmth.”

She ends the article with a wonderful sense of hope.

Marsh writes, “Yes, in winter you read your catalogues – in summer you live them!”

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

Hunnewell Pinetum: Garden as Collection

February 3, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Plant collecting is nothing new.

The nineteenth century revealed an interest in both collecting and showing off plants. In the early part of the century such a hobby became the pastime of the wealthy.

By the end of the century the middle class had joined the ranks.

One method was to plant a collection of conifers.

Stephen Harris mentions that hobby in his book, Planting Paradise: Cultivating the Garden 1500-1900.

Harris says, “Gardeners, especially the wealthy with land and gardens to fill, were attracted by the landscape possibilities of conifers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.”

The Boston area included an important example of collecting conifers.

Not far from Boston, in the town of Wellesley, in 1867 Horatio Hollis Hunnewell (1810 – 1902) planted a fourteen acre pinetum, or garden of pines.

Thus he was able to display his collection of evergreens.

Hunnewell’s goal in creating this special garden appeared in his 1906 biography called Life, letters, and diary of Horatio Hollis Hunnewell.

He said “In it will be my aim to plant every conifer, native and foreign, that will be found sufficiently hardy to thrive in our cold New England climate.”

The Hunnewell Pinetum (1906) is located near Boston in the town of Wellesley.

Today three hundred sixty towering conifers still grow in his pinetum, now open to the public.

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

Two Typical Victorian Flowers

January 20, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Everyone can easily list two important Victorian flowers.

In his book The Victorian Flower Garden garden historian Geoffrey Taylor hesitates not one moment and presents his two typical Victorian flowers.

He writes, “The hollyhock and the scarlet geranium are what one thinks of as typical Victorian flowers.”

Taylor then explains why he includes the hollyhock. He says, “The hollyhock almost qualifies as a true florists’ flower.”

He gives the history of the hollyhock which I did not know. It seems that a shoemaker from Saffron Walden named Charles Baron introduced it to England from the Grand Orient in the sixteenth century.

Another choice

I guess we are all entitled to an opinion here.

My first choice for the most important Victorian flower would have to be the dahlia. The dahlia is both big and showy. Those are qualities one thinks of when you think of the Victorian era, especilly the 1890s.

This 1888 catalog cover from the John Lewis Childs Seed Company in New York says it all. [below]

Childs catalog cover of 1888 bursts in dahlias.

I could live with the geranium as the other top choice for that period of the nineteenth century. Everyone grew geraniums.

What are your top two Victorian flowers?

Filed Under: Advertising, Annuals, Garden history, Gardens of England, Victorian

Garden Flowers Familiar to Generations

December 23, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Garden flowers familiar to generations –

We all love garden annuals like lobelia and asters in the summer garden.

Such annuals, and many like them, have been part of our flower gardens for centuries.

Why is it that every garden center in the spring sells the same flowers like carnations, impatiens, and petunias? Because they are familiar.

We garden with plants that have been part of the garden world for decades and even centuries. The varieties may change because we have so many hybrids, but the plants are familiar.

Garden historian Geoffrey Taylor writes in his book The Victorian Flower Garden, “It is The Gardener’s Dictionary and its author [Philip Miller] that must occupy the most honorably prominent place in any account of the background to the Victorian garden.”

Catalog cover of familiar flowers in 1882
[D. M. Ferry & Co.]

He argues that the Victorian garden has roots, literally, in the gardens of earlier decades, especially the 1700s when plants were arriving in England from around the world. It was then that botanist Miller (1691-1771) supervised the Chelsea Physic Garden and wrote about the garden.

Some of the flowers Miller mentions include the crocus, the snowdrop,hyacinth, and narcissus for spring.

The list also includes anemone, stock, the rose, tulip,carnation, phlox, and coreopsis, mostly for summer.

So our flower choices are familiar because we have been growing them for decades and even centuries.

Perhaps that is why it is difficult for gardeners to try new plants when spring appears.

Filed Under: Annuals, Bulbs, Garden fashion, Garden history, Gardens of England, History of English garden style, Victorian

Formal vs Natural Garden Design

December 16, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Formal vs natural garden design –

There has long been a battle with various levels of passion between those who love formal garden design and those who don’t.

Some prefer the ‘natural’ design as the English proposed it in the early eighteenth century. It became the style of garden for decades and still persists.

Landscape designer and nurseryman from Pennsylvania and later California J. Wilkinson Elliott (1858-1939) ranted about the absurdity of the formal garden in his book Adventures of a Horticulturist (1935).

Elliott said, “I do not like formal gardens. I consider them an abomination and a thorn in the flesh.”

He was pretty clear where he stood on the issue.

Then he gave his reasons.

He wrote, “The first rule to be observed in making a good garden is to make it as natural as possible, and that does not mean that design is not necessary.”

Even though the garden looks more natural, it still takes the art of design to realize it.

Eliott concluded, “The best-designed garden is one that looks as though it had not been designed.”

He wrote that in 1935.

Today we still make a distinction between natural and formal. Some gardens showcase a bit of each type of design.

Wonder what Elliott would think of that?

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

When People Hated Dahlias

December 9, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

When people hated dahlias –

There was a time when gardeners found little pleasure in growing dahlias.

In 1866 American botanist Edward Sprague Rand, Jr. wrote in his book Garden Flowers: How to Cultivate Them , “In this country, the plant [dahlia] is falling out of favor, and is by no means as extensively grown as formerly.”

Then he wrote that gardeners are now paying more attention to the Hollyhock and Gladiolus.

Dahlias fell out of fashion. Simple as that.

He presented his reasons why that happened.

First and foremost, dahlias, he claimed, gave off an odor in the garden.

Who would ever think this beautiful dahlia called ‘Blue Bell’ would repulse gardeners because of its smell?

Dahlia ‘Blue bell’ in my garden this summer

He called the dahlia “a rank smelling thing.”

Rand wrote, “The florists’ varieties have been obtained by years of crossing and seed saving, from D. variabilis.”

Cobsequently, there are many varieties that look alike.

“In a small garden” he wrote ” a hundred flowers can be found any one of which will well fill it’s place.”

Eventually dahlias came back into fashion. Today there seems to be plenty of interest once again in dahlias.

Filed Under: Garden fashion, Garden history, Victorian

Book Contract in the Mail

November 25, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Book contract in the mail –

I received some wonderful news this week.

Ohio University Press offered me a contract to publish my new book All about Flowers: James Vick’s Nineteenth Century Seed Company.

I want to thank the people who read earlier versions of this book and gave me advice on how to make it clearer and more enjoyable.

Many people do not know James Vick (1818-1882) from Rochester, New York who owned one of the largest seed companies in the country.

The main idea behind the book is that Vick sold Victorian flowers for the garden that we still love today, a century and a half later. He promoted the kind of Victorian garden that we all love.

What was so fascinating about him was the way he conducted his business.

His goal was to spread the love of floriculture.

Letters from customers he included in his catlaog and magazine testify to his great passion for flowers and his love for his customers.

I think that’s what amazed me most, his relationship with his customers, spread around the country.

Publication Date

At this point I have no idea when the book will actually come out but certainly not before the fall of 2020.

An academic press like OUP enlists reviewers to read the manuscript. The author does not know who they are.

One such reviewer said, “Historians have previously overlooked plantsman James Vick and his significance to 19th c. ornamental horticulture. Thomas Mickey’s book makes an indispensable contribution to the field of U.S. ornamental horticultural history. “

Here is an image of the kind of flower chromolithograph that Vick made available to his customers. They would hang it up in the living room as decoractive art.

Vick’s chromo [*couretsy of* Millicent W. Coggon, a Vick descendant]

I am happy to report that the book includes several colorful illustrations from both Vick’s catalog and his magazine, Vick’s Illustrated Monthly.

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

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