After 1850 a booming seed and nursery business appeared on the West coast. That same year when California became part of the United States, local nurseries began to import plants from states in the Northeast and Europe. The trains after…
The nineteenth century English garden asssumed a natural design, with the lawn, and where possible, a vista. In 1840 British landscape designer Charles McIntosh in his book The Flower Garden wrote: "It is generally understood, that the style termed English…
You may think that the popular English garden style in the nineteenth century was limited to the Atlantic coast. Not true. California garden historian Thomas Brown wrote that in the nineteenth century California planted gardens in both the English gardenesque…
Landscape designer Charles Eliot (1859-1897) advocated for the natural beauty in America. He did not encourage simply duplicating a European style landscape when we had so much to offer in our own land, rivers, trees, and mountains. In an article…
I have enjoyed a few episodes of the PBS TV program Downton Abbey. When I see the manor house in its grassy setting in the program's opening, the landscape reminds me of Chatsworth in northern England. Chatsworth is the classic landscape…