The genius behind the lawn at Chatsworth was Capability Brown (1716-1783). In the course of…
Garden Flowers Familiar to Generations
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.”

[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.
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