Vick’s House Showcased the Victorian Garden Style

Rochester, New York seedsman James Vick (1818-1882) is one of my favorite nineteenth century garden writers.

I love his seed catalogs and his magazine, Vick’s Illustrated Monthly.  He taught America the principles of landscape design in quite a bit of detail in his writing.

But he also practiced modern landscape gardening.

In the black and white drawing of his house below, notice the lawn, the curved entrance-way, the trees at the property boundaries, and the flowerbed on the lawn.

 His home landscape illustrates the prevalent Victorian, romantic landscape,  dependent on the English garden style.

Vick’s  property on Rochester’s East Avenue is now the site of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

His readers learned not only in his words but also in the way he designed his own landscape.

He wrote from his own expereince.