Loudon Supported Middle Class Gardening in England

One of the people I most admire in English garden history is writer, landscape gardener, and horticulturist John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843).

Loudon’s monthly journal Gardener’s Magazine sought to teach gardening as an art and to recognize the value of professional gardeners who chose gardening as a career.

But it was his opening the door to write and speak about gardening for the middle class which deserves special note.

In his book Victorian Gardens John Highstone writes: “John Claudius Loudon published Suburban Gardener in 1838. For many years it was the bible of the new and rapidly rising middle class. As a result the garden, no longer the exclusive domain of a privileged few, became the delight of the middle class.”

Loudon wrote that growing plants and visiting gardens is a pleasure for all.

He found a ready audience for that message, the emerging middle class in England.

America’s middle class enjoyed gardening as well, especially after 1860 and the rise of the suburbs where the homeowner could have a lawn, flowers, and a kitchen garden out back.

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