Sarah Goodwin’s Garden

Sarah Parker Rose Goodwin in nineteenth  century Porstmouth, NH loved her garden.  I just finished reading  Margaret Whyte Kelly’s book Sarah- Her Story.

Sarah’s garden has been reconstructed today as part of Strawbery Banke, the cultural landscape that traces three centuries of gardening in Portsmouth.

The garden illustrates the use of flowerbeds, called carpet bedding, that was popular in the second half ot the nineteenth century.

In her journal Sarah wrote: “I  like all the varieties of landscape gardening–I like bedding out.”  Bedding out followed the design of planting  featured in carpet bedding, where the same plant, usually a variety of annual, was cultivated and kept closely trimmed throughout the summer.

Thus, Sarah’s gardening reflected what English gardeners of that period also enjoyed,like bedding out, carpet bedding, and ribbon beds.

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