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…
The weigela is one of my favorite spring shrubs. I love seeing the pink flowers, mostly in June. Did you know, according to Michael Dirr's Manual of Woody Landscape Plants , there are now over 170 hybrids of this shrub?.…
When cottage gardens became fashion, thanks to Gertrude Jekyll. In the early nineteenth century English garden writer John Claudius Loudon first recognized the cottage garden as an important form of gardening. He was attempting to reach gardeners wherever they were.…
Cottage gardens finally recognized. Everybody loves the cottage garden. It holds a mystique of a garden, limited in space, but with plants galore, mostly flowers. There were cottage gardens in England for centuries. If you define the term as the…
Walled garden origin spands centuries. Recently I have been reading about the connection between culture and flowers. What I have discovered is that flowers have played a different role in cultures around the world over the centuries. Some countires, like…