English gardeners began collecting American plants as early as the fifteenth century, according to Eleanour Sinclair Rohde's book The Old English Herbals. Sometimes a native American plant would come back home and find a place in our gardens only after…
Since the English garden provided the model for nineteenth century American gardening, it is no surprise that American seedsmen and nuserymen looked to England for new plants. C. M. Hovey,nurseryman and writer, from Cambridge, Mass. said the new coleus from…
The British garden writer J. C. Loudon wrote in the early nineteenth century that public parks would provide an experience of nature for the busy city resident. He encouraged an enjoyment of gardens and the landscape for all classes, not…
A gardener in the Victorian era, from 1850 til the end of the century, treasured annuals that provided color to the landscape. The bolder and bigger, the better. Coleus, petunias, cannas were just a few of the choices used in…
Since the seventeenth century the English landscape style encouraged the lawn. The lawn became part of the English garden aesthetic. American landscape designer Frank Scott wrote The Art of Beautifying Home Grounds of Small Extent in 1870. The lawn, he…