Category Archives: Planting Design

Summer in a French Garden

Leave a reply

Plant de géranium rouge                     Photographs by Eugène Blondelet courtesy Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Perhaps it’s in February, at the very end of the winter, that we look forward to the summer months with the most intensity?  These autochrome photographs, taken by Eugène Blondelet sometime between 1907 and 1920, provide a welcome reminder of warmer days ahead and capture perfectly the pleasures of long, sunny days outside in a French family garden.

The autochrome colour photography process was created by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière in the early 1900s and they launched Autochrome Lumière in 1907, aimed at the amateur photographer.  Their process involved the use of prepared glass plates with tiny grains of dyed potato starch pressed onto one side and photosensitive silver halide emulsion on the other.  Autochrome was too expensive to make colour photography accessible to everyone, but proved popular with photographers who could afford it (like Blondelet), who frequently used the new technology to record their families and domestic surroundings, including gardens.

Autochrome Lumière required long exposures, so a tripod was needed to keep the heavy camera stable and people had to remain still while a photograph was being taken to avoid motion blur.  Clearly, the young boys in fancy dress (Garçonnets déguisés dans un jardin)  photographed by Blondelet were unable to keep their poses quite long enough for the exposure time required – perhaps the double excitement of dressing up and having their photograph taken made this impossible – but the blurring caused by their movement somehow underlines their youthful energy and adds to the charm of the image.

Autochrome was best suited to objects with a fixed position and plants were ideal subjects for the photographer, being both static and colourful.  Images of bright floral arrangements were used by the Lumière Brothers as a means of marketing their process, as they were so effective in demonstrating its ability to replicate colour accurately.  Blondelet’s still life photographs of garden flowers reveal an abundance of roses, phlox, dahlias, geums, asters, coreopsis, gladiolus, and crocosmia – some of the popular flowers of the period.

The series of photographs entitled Garçonnets déguisés dans un jardin give us a glimpse into how this example of a domestic garden was planted.  The borders behind the children are edged quite formally with three rows of low clipped box with a mass planting of orange French marigolds behind these, providing a continuous block of colour.  This effect would be further amplified later in the season by a row of nasturtiums which we can see beginning to climb up the balustrade.

Another (highly staged) image Garçonnets posant dans un jardin shows two boys in the role of gardeners, one with a small rake and the other pulling a wooden cart containing flowers supposedly gathered from the abundant and colourful border behind them.  Close up shots reveal a hydrangea, slightly wilted in the heat of the sun, some dahlias and a brilliant red pelargonium.

Blondelet’s interest in gardens seems to have extended beyond his own.  Massif de bégonias rouges et plant de bananier shows detail of a summer bedding display which looks typical of those planted in a public park.  Jardin d’une propriété en bordure d’un cours d’eau shows the traditional wooden gates, picket fencing and neat planting of a well cared for cottage garden, with steps down to a slow moving expanse of water.

What is the appeal of autochrome photographs today?  While their colour has intensity there’s also a slightly diffuse quality to the images, which must owe something to the materials used in the process, especially the granular nature of the potato starch.  While unmistakably grounded in the real world, at the same time these images seem to possess a sense of detachment from reality; a dream-like quality. Some of the imperfections and inevitable deterioration of the fragile plates over time contribute to this effect – the colour distortion in Blondelet’s Bouquet des roses from green at the top of the frame to red at the bottom is one such example.  But if the world depicted by black and white images can sometimes seem remote, these autochrome photographs connect us with the past with a striking immediacy.

Thanks to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France for making these beautiful images available online.

Garçonnets déguisés dans un jardin

Garçonnets déguisés dans un jardin

Garçonnets déguisés dans un jardin

Garçonnets posant dans un jardin

Fleurs de diverses couleurs dans une cruche

Bouquet de roses

Bouquet de fleurs variées blanches

Bouquet composé de fleurs et de brins d’herbe

Fleurs fanées dans un vase

Massif de dahlias roses

Massif ensoleille d’hortensia bleu

Massif de bégonias rouges et plant de bananier

Jardin d’une propriété en bordure d’un cours d’eau

Plant de géranium rouge

Feuillage en contrejour

Autoportrait – Eugène Blondelet

Further reading:

Comprehensive explanation of Autochrome Lumière here

The Photographer in the Garden (2018) Jamie M Allen / Sarah Anne McNear
published by the George Eastman Museum / Aperture  – link here

Bibliothèque Nationale de France – online collections here

The story of Auguste and Louis Lumière here

Oudolf Field, Bruton

Leave a reply

Echinacea, or coneflower in Oudolf Field, Hauser & Wirth, Somerset

Located in the tranquil Somerset countryside, Hauser & Wirth’s arts centre just outside Bruton is a destination both for modern art – and its gardens.  Landscaping for the entire site has been designed by Piet Oudolf, and the Oudolf Field, described as a one acre perennial meadow, is its centrepiece.

Entering the Field, grass paths of varying widths weave through the dense planting, allowing visitors to experience the immersive effect of bold blocks of grasses and flowering perennials.  Nearest to the gallery buildings is a concealed pond area which was attracting dragonflies on the day we visited in August, and at the top of the Field is a pavilion designed by Smiljan Radic.

Here in this meadow garden, created by one of the world’s best known landscape designers for an international art gallery, it seems like a good moment to consider the status of gardens as an art form.  In that context, the Oudolf Field feels very much like a living installation.

The term ‘meadow’ suggests planting that is loose and informal, and this introduces an immediate conundrum for the visitor.  The detail of Oudolf’s design is very tightly controlled, and while in August the overall effect of the mature planting is one of meadow-like irregularity, this belies a rigidity that underpins the design.

The perennial plants are placed and ordered with great precision – much as they might have been in a 17th century parterre.  But unlike a parterre garden, this design is not symmetrical,  and instead of being clipped into artificial patterns, the plants  are chosen for their wilder character, and allowed to keep their natural shapes.

Beds edged with corten steel meet manicured grass or gravel pathways, providing the crisp edges we’d expect in a traditional formal garden. This contrast between formality and informality is one of the trademarks of Oudolf’s style, working best when all the elements are meticulously maintained – which is certainly the case at Hauser & Wirth and a great credit to the skill of their gardeners.

Oudolf uses lots of contrasts in his planting, and some of these create almost painterly effects.  Hazy fine textured grasses are a favourite, as are the diffuse patches of green and yellow produced by perennial plants like Amsonia hubrichtii.  This interesting plant carries small pale blue flowers in May and June on stems covered in fine needle-shaped leaves.  These turn yellow and orange in autumn, providing intense splashes of colour amongst the paler grasses and forming a backdrop for flowers with an upright habit, such as veronicastrum and agastache.

In other areas, blocks of perennial flowers with rounded shapes like sedums (Hylotelephium), echinacea, helenium and various umbellifer species form a pleasing contrast with the flower spikes of persicaria, lythrum and perovskia.

Oudolf’s gardens are designed to reach their peak from late summer through autumn, and the plants are left to die back naturally – their structures providing winter interest and acting as a seedbank for birds.  In February and March everything is cut back to ground level and the growth cycle begins again.  Perhaps it is not intentional, but sculptor Richard Long’s Stone Circle (1980) located close to the pavilion seems to echo this circle of life theme.

Well worth a visit when travel becomes possible again – some links to Hauser & Wirth and Piet Oudolf’s website below:

Fine cut leaves of Amsonia hubrichtii turn from green to yellow in August, forming a hazy backdrop for late flowering upright spikes of pink veronicastrum and Eryngium agavifolium

Yellowing leaves of Amsonia hubrichtii form a striking contrast to the upright blue spike of agastache

Contrasting shapes of Hylotelephium (sedum) in the foreground with blue spikes of Perovski (Russian sage) directly behind

Detail Hylotelephium (formerly sedum)

Lythrum (centre) with Dianthus carthusianorum, or Carthusian pinks in the foreground

Contrast of texture and colour with purple Hylotelephium (sedum) in foreground, the yellow grass Carex elata ‘Aurea’ behind

Heleniums in flower

The pond at Oudolf field was attracting dragonflies on the day we visited. The flowering rush Butomus umbellatus in the foreground

Damera peltata, sometimes called the umbrella plant, in the pond area.

The Radic Pavillion

Plan of Hauser & Wirth, Somerset showing a simplified design of the Oudolf Field

Detail of corten steel edge to the borders juxtaposed with gravel and lawn

A large clump of yellow and orange heleniums provides a block of colour amongst the paler grasses and perennials

Oudolf’s design for the gallery courtyard. The late season grass Sesleria autumnalis brings a freshness to the planting

Further reading:

Hauser & Wirth, Somerset

oudolf.com

A Revival of English Topiary

1 Reply

From The Book of Topiary (1904) Charles Henry Curtis and William Gibson (Biodiversity Heritage Library)

While visiting some Kent and East Sussex gardens recently, I was struck by the range of topiary we saw.  The yew peacocks at Great Dixter are well known, as are the birds, animals and accomplished geometric forms in yew and box at Charlotte and Donald Molesworth’s garden in Benenden, (which opens to the public for the National Gardens Scheme).  Our travels through villages revealed more topiarised trees and shrubs, often a feature in cottage front gardens.

There is something about topiary that associates pleasingly with cottages and other English vernacular buildings, seeming to complement their scale and sense of history.  The designer Arne Maynard frequently uses these forms as structural elements in his gardens, using the formality of the tightly clipped trees as a contrast to much looser plantings, like a meadow or perennials and roses.

These topiary forms of tiered pyramids, spirals and birds feel quintessentially English, but as with so many garden fashions their origins lie elsewhere – in this case, Boksoop in The Netherlands, according to The Book of Topiary (1904).  This book by Charles Henry Curtis and William Gibson provides a fascinating overview of the art in England from an Edwardian perspective.  Curtis handles the history and Gibson, in his capacity as head gardener at Levens Hall in Cumbria, where the topiary was planted in the 1690s (and remains largely unchanged today) explains about training and maintenance.

From its heyday in the 16th and 17th centuries, Curtis argues, topiary in England fell out of favour as the influence of landscape gardening gathered pace, and Victorian gardeners like William Robinson advocated a more naturalistic approach to planting.  However, with the rise of the Arts and Crafts movement in the late 19th century and its focus on medieval art and architecture, there was a revival of interest in topiary for domestic gardens.

Curtis mentions two nurseries, William Cutbush & Sons of Highgate, London and J. Cheal & Sons in Crawley, Sussex that in the early 1900s were supplying topiary specimens to the public and showing plants at RHS shows.  The aptly named Herbert J. Cutbush was a regular visitor to Holland, travelling there on most weekends, and it was here that he came across topiary specimens that interested him.  Curtis says:

‘He discovered that some of the best trained and the best furnished specimens of sculptured yew and box were to be found in the farmhouse gardens, in small, almost unknown villages, far from the usual routes of tourists and business-men, and this led to still further explorations.’

Over time, Cutbush got to know the Dutch topiary growers who were located in the Boskoop district, inland from The Hague and Rotterdam.  He persuaded them to sell him plants from their nurseries for import to England, but would also buy specimens from private gardens:

‘One big tree that for sixty years had been the chief ornament of a Dutch blacksmith’s garden was only purchased after a whole day spent in persuasion and the consumption of much Schiedam, and after the purchase was made another week was spent in lifting and packing and removing the tree to the London steamer.’

The trouble and expense of importing plants like this one suggests that the market in England was sufficient to make the effort worthwhile.  The topiary designs that Cutbush saw in Boksoop are described in detail by Curtis:

‘There is a great variety of form in the Dutch clipped trees, but spires surmounted with birds seem to be among the most common and are as easy to produce as most.  For these, and for the peacocks and the spiral or serpentine columns, yew is almost invariably used.’ 

‘Pyramids, mop-heads and blunt cones are among the commonest designs; they do not call for the exercise of much ingenuity, but when these pyramidal trees are cut into several regular and well graded tiers their cost increases considerably.’

Cutbush also reported examples of topiary furniture such as tables with turned legs and armchairs, churches and crosses as well as ‘verdant poultry’:

‘Sitting hens, geese and ducks are common designs, and to protect the verdant poultry one may obtain equally verdant dogs, with or without kennels’

The Dutch topiary shrubs were field grown and Cutbush says that box birds might be trained for 10 – 12 years before they were lifted for export – dogs would need a little longer at 12 – 14 years.  To make the eventual lifting easier, the roots of the shrubs were pruned after a year’s growth.  Curtis and Gibson’s book doesn’t feature any photographs from Holland or the Cutbush nurseries, but there are several photographs from Cheal’s nursery at Crawley, showing many of the topiary forms described.

Today, Boksoop remains a centre for topiary with several nurseries still exporting their shrubs.  And as I witnessed last week, the domestic themed topiary that so inspired Cutbush lives on abundantly in English gardens.

Shirley Hibberd reveals his admiration for the topiary peacock.

Levens Gardens General View.

Peacocks, tables, spirals and boats in yew and box at J. Cheal and Sons, Crawley.

Hens, ducks, peacocks, etc. in box and yew at J. Cheal and Sons, Crawley

Crosses and jugs in yew.

Topiary at Balmoral Cottage, the garden of Charlotte and Donald Molesworth, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, Kent

Stylised yew peacock at Great Dixter

Shaggy peacock, Great Dixter

A splendid euonymus swan and tiered bay in a front garden, Appledore

Further reading:

The Book of Topiary

European Boxwood and Topiary Society website

Permaculture in the Lea Valley

1 Reply

Inside the glasshouse at Hawkwood Plant Nursery the home of Organiclea, fruit and vegetable producers in the Lea Valley, Chigwell.

Tempted outside by the February sunshine last weekend, the unseasonable warmth happened to coincide with an open day at organic growers OrganicLea in Chingford.  And so it was at the very beginning of the vegetable growing season I found myself with a group of visitors exploring twelve acres of fields and glasshouses in the Lea Valley guided by Tim Mitchell, one of the garden’s organisers.

The OrganicLea market garden is to be found, somewhat incongruously, between streets of semi-detached houses typical of the outer suburbs of London and the eastern edge of Epping Forest.  It occupies what was previously Hawkwood Plant Nursery, the London borough of Waltham Forest’s propagation centre for amenity plants grown for use in local parks and gardens.  When this facility closed ten years ago, OrganicLea saw an opportunity to expand – they had previously operated from a community allotment – and they now lease the whole site from the council.

The majority of the gardens are on a slope and several large oak trees, some of which experts believe date from the 17th century, punctuate the growing area.  According to conventional horticultural wisdom, this might not be considered an ideal position for a market garden.  However, by following principles of permaculture, OrganicLea has been able to work with the existing topography to create a productive garden.

Tim’s personal interest in permaculture came out of an interest in ecology. “I was interested in how humans can work alongside other species without destroying the habitats or poisoning those other species. Ecological food-growing  seemed to be the best working model. Although other species often thrive in our absence, it would be nice if we could join the party without ruining it.” he explains.

Permaculture is a term first used in the 1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, the two Australian pioneers of the concept.  It stands for ‘permanent agriculture’ and seeks to find ways of cultivating food crops sustainably, in harmony with the natural environment.  Their book Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements (1978) was followed by the establishment in 1979 of a Permaculture Institute in Tasmania.  Although Mollison spent some time as a campaigner against commercial agriculture, which he believed was damaging the environment in Tasmania, eventually he found it more worthwhile to develop ideas and teach others about sustainable growing practice, which is now a worldwide movement.

The diagram below shows how the permaculture design concept works, with the most intensive cultivation nearest to the house or settlement and much of the perimeter of the site left in a natural state, as a ‘wilderness zone’ for ‘foraging, inspiration and mediation’.

The French translation of Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements (1978)

Standing at the top of Entrance field, the first part of the site to be cultivated by OrganicLea, Tim pointed out a swale, or ditch, running the length of the cultivated area.  This, he explained, is the first line of defence against the force of rainwater running off the wooded hill above, catching some of it and and preventing erosion of the soil.  Beneath this, long, curved beds of vegetables divided by bark chipping paths follow the natural contour of the hill and absorb the remaining rainwater, reducing the frequency the beds need to be hand watered.

All the outdoor crops are cultivated by hand using the ‘no dig’ method.  Compost is added to the beds annually which smothers weeds and builds up topsoil without disturbing the soil structure beneath.  These beds operate on a ten year crop rotation plan, with two years of this cycle devoted to feeding the soil using a green manure crop.

At the centre of the site are the commercial glasshouses OrganicLea inherited ten years ago.  Tim explained, “The glasshouse is a boon as it allows us to run a viable commercial operation.  We can grow higher value crops like tomatoes and chillies which are sold to the public but also to restaurants.”  Up to sixty varieties of chillies are grown and are popular at OrganicLea’s three local market stalls.  Except for some propagation tables, the glasshouse is unheated, but even in February many of the long beds bordered by old scaffolding boards are full of winter salads.

The surrounding woodland has not been cleared but is managed for wildlife.  Out of twelve acres, just six are under production and the OrganicLea team is trying to monitor and increase biodiversity.  At the edge of this ‘wilderness zone’ there’s a poet’s corner dedicated to John Clare.  Tim says, “We like to think he passed through the woods here when he was living in Epping Forest.”

So today the last word goes to Clare – these lines are from London versus Epping Forest written when Clare was resident at the High Beach Asylum in Epping Forest between 1837 – 41.  Although London has now overwhelmed so much of the natural landscape, from this spot surrounded by trees it is somehow possible to experience a sense that nature is still greater than human activity.

Thus London like a shrub among the hills
Lies hid and lower than the bushes here.
I could not bear to see the tearing plough
Root up and steal the forest from the poor,
But leave to freedom all she loves untamed,
The forest walk enjoyed and loved by all.

Rhubarb in the Old Kitchen Garden.

Lettuce, with garlic in the background.

Endive

Rocket and broad beans

Swiss chard

Propagators on heated bench. The black pots in the background will soon be used for the chillie crop.

Inside the glasshouse. The green string is used to support beans, tomatoes and cucumbers.

The glasshouse from the top of Entrance Field

Gloves drying out on trellis.

Further reading:

OrganicLea – well worth looking out for monthly open days and events.

Bill Mollison

David Holmgren

Permaculture Association (UK)

Knot Gardens for the Country Housewife

1 Reply

The Country House-wives Garden – the second section from a book entitled A new orchard and garden, or, The best way for planting, grafting, and to make any ground good for a rich orchard; particularly in the north parts of England by William Lawson (first published 1618)  From the Biodiversity Heritage Library

If you are curious to know what a knot garden looked like in a smaller domestic garden of the early 17th century, The Country House-wives Garden (1618) by William Lawson gives some intriguing insights into the vast range of designs, and plants that were used. Lawson includes in his book several knot patterns which could be followed or used as inspiration for an individual’s own design, remarking that ‘they are as many, as there are devices in Gardeners brains’.

The number of formes, Mazes, and Knots is so great, and men are so diversly delighted, that I leave every House-wife to herself, especially seeing to set downe many, had been but to fill much paper; yet lest I deprive her of all delight and direction, let her view these choice, new forms;  

He suggests the knot should be located within a square area bordered with shrubs, and be planted up in late September.  Plants that might be used include roses, rosemary, lavender, bee-flowers, Isop (hyssop), sage, thyme, cowslips, peony, daisies, clove gilliflowers (carnation), pinks, southernwood and lilies.

One of the characteristics that distinguishes a knot garden from a parterre is that the lines in the knot design appear to cross over each other, as if the pattern has been made out of a continuous strand of thread.  This is achieved in the garden by using a combination of continuous and interrupted lines of plants, so that the continuous lines appear to travel over the interrupted lines.  Lawson’s first illustration shows how the ground for the knot garden is divided prior to planting using stakes and lines, so that the plants could be arranged accurately to make a geometric design.

William Lawson (1553/4–1635) was a Church of England clergyman based in Ormesby, Yorkshire.  His only book, A new orchard and garden, or, The best way for planting, grafting, and to make any ground good for a rich orchard; particularly in the north parts of England was first published 1618.  It shows a general audience how to plant and look after fruit trees, and provides glimpses of other popular garden features such as camomile seats and topiary (his ambitious suggestions include men in battle or hounds chasing deer).  The second section of the book, The Country House-wives Garden is aimed specifically at women, supplying general seasonal information about laying out and managing a garden for flowers, vegetables and herbs.

Planting suggestions for knots are also discussed in detail by John Parkinson . In Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris (1629) he mentions sweete herbes clipped regularly to preserve the form of the knot, with the prunings used as strewing herbs for the house.  Germander, hyssop, pinks and carnations, lavender, thyme, savory and French or Dutch box were all popular, as was thrift, the summer flowers gathered, ‘to deck up an house’.  Cotton lavender or santolina is mentioned, but as a relatively new introduction to England it was only found in the gardens of the wealthy:

The rarity and novelty of this herb, being for the most part but in the Gardens of great persons doth cause it to be of the greater regard

Parkinson favours box for a knot garden, as it is evergreen, keeps it shape better than many other plants and is tolerant of a range of planting conditions.  He explains his secret of pruning the roots to stop them spreading and damaging other plants in the knot:

You shall take a broad pointed Iron like unto a Slise or Chessell, which thrust downe right into the ground a good depth all along the inside of the border of Boxe somewhat close thereunto, you may thereby cut away the spreading rootes thereof, which draw so much moisture from the other herbes on the inside, and by this means both your herbes and flowers in the knot, and your Boxe also, for that the Boxe will be nourished sufficiently from the rest of the rootes it shooteth on all the other sides.

Parkinson also mentions materials used to edge the beds of the knot garden including tiles, stones, oak boards, lead cut into the shape of battlements and, somewhat surprisingly, sheep shank bones, with rows of knuckle ends being visible above the ground.  However, he records that many people ‘mislike’ the shank bones and that they are not used widely.

The last word on knot gardens goes to Lawson.  His description of the garden as a place where ‘nature is corrected by Art’, defines the character of knot gardens perfectly, and at the same time perhaps, gives us a definition for all gardens:

And all these (plants), by the skill of your gardener, so comely and orderly placed in your borders and squares, and so intermingled, that none looking thereon cannot but wonder, to see what nature corrected by Art can doe.

The ground plot for knots, together with a design for a knot.

Designs for Flower de luce and The Trefoyle

The fret and Lozenge

Crossbow and Diamond

Ovall and Maze designs

Plan of a late Elizabethan Garden from A new orchard and garden, (first published 1618)

Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (or, Park-in-Sun’s Terrestrial Paradise) 1629

Further reading:

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

The Country House-wives Garden

Parkinson on Knot Gardens

A Cottage and Garden

2 Replies

from An Account of a Cottage and Garden in Tadcaster. Sir Thomas Bernard, 1797 (Wikimedia Commons)

Picturesque cottages might be so disposed around a park, as to ornament and enliven the scenery with much more effect, than those misplaced gothic castles, and those pigmy models of Grecian temples, that perverted taste is so busy with: but it is the unfortunate principle of ornamental buildings in England that they should be uninhabited and uninhabitable.

This impassioned call for landowners to reject the fashion for ornamental garden structures and build cottages on their estates instead, to address a rural housing shortage caused by inclosure, comes from the social reformer Sir Thomas Bernard’s fascinating text An Account of a Cottage and Garden in Tadcaster (1797).  It was published for the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, a charity which Bernard helped to found.

The picturesque cottage garden is a powerful motif in English garden history.  The cottage garden represents a modest beauty, simplicity, a place of domestic production, supplying fruit, flowers and vegetables to the owners; perhaps some eggs, or honey.  It is unpretentious, a sanctuary, in harmony with nature and its surroundings; it possesses an essential integrity born out of hard work and self-reliance.  All these qualities are attractive, of course, and the cottage garden style is one many aspire to re-create today.

The first garden Bernard discusses belongs to Britton Abbot.  At the age of 67 Abbot is still working as an agricultural labourer.  The interview with Abbot takes place on a Saturday afternoon – his wife is sent to fetch him from a field where he is working a mile or so away.  Abbot’s fortunes had nearly collapsed when his previous house and land were enclosed.  He appealed to a local landowner, who gave him a strip of land upon which he was able to build his current house and establish the garden.  Without this generous assistance, it is likely Abbot and his family would have faced ruin.

Abbot’s garden is about a quarter of an acre and has a hedge enclosing the garden.  Cultivated by his wife and noted for its neatness, the garden contains, ‘fifteen apple-trees, one green gage, and three winesour plum-trees, two apricot-trees, several gooseberry and currant bushes, abundance of common vegetables, and three hives of bees’.

The produce the Abbots would expect to harvest annually from the garden amounts to, ‘about 40 bushels of potatoes, besides other vegetables; and his fruit, in a good year, is worth from £3 to £4 a year.  His wife occasionally goes out to work; she also spins at home, and takes care of his house and garden’.

Bernard appeals to other landowners to give land to working people to be used in the same way:

The quarter of an acre that Britton Abbot inclosed was not worth a shilling a year. It now contains a good house and a garden, abounding in fruit, vegetables, and almost every thing that constitutes the wealth of the cottager.  In such inclosures, the benefit to the country, and to the individuals of the parish, would far surpass any petty sacrifice of land to be required.  FIVE UNSIGHTLY, UNPROFITABLE, ACRES OF WASTE GROUND WOULD AFFORD HABITATION AND COMFORT TO TWENTY SUCH FAMILIES AS BRITTON ABBOT’S.

The second case study, contained in an Account of the produce of a Cottager’s Garden in Shropshire (1806) features Richard Millward’s garden.  Millward is a collier, and his wife Jane cultivates agricultural land, and a garden, which together amount to just over an acre.

The wife has managed the ground in a particular manner for thirteen years with potatoes and wheat, chiefly by her own labour; and in a way which has yielded good crops, and of late fully equal, or rather superior, to the produce of the neighbouring farms, and with little or no expense; but she has improved her mode of culture during the last six years.

Jane Millward has introduced the new cultivation method after becoming frustrated waiting for local farmers to have the time to plough the larger part of the garden for her.  Now she and her husband do all the work themselves.  In October, she sows wheat straight into the ground where potatoes have been, so the wheat over-winters in the ground.  Then the ground which has grown wheat in the previous year is dug for planting potatoes the following spring.  This excerpt gives an impression of the sheer hard work involved planting the potatoes:

The ground is dug for potatoes in the month of March and April, to the depth of about nine inches.  This digging would cost sixpence per pole, if hired.  After putting in the dung, the potatoes are planted in rows, about twelve or fourteen inches distant.  The dung is carried out in a wheelbarrow and it takes a great many days to plant the whole, generally ten days.  Her husband always assists in digging, after his hours of ordinary labour.

In the vegetable garden Jane plants peas, beans, cabbages and early potatoes for the family plus turnips which she boils for their pig.  Both accounts give us an unusual amount of detail about the gardens and the way they were arranged and used.

Sir Thomas Bernard (1750 – 1818) spent much of his working life on social projects to improve conditions for the poor.  He helped to establish the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor and was treasurer of the Foundling Hospital in London.  He also established a school for the blind.  He was an advocate of vaccination, rural allotments and was instrumental in obtaining consents for the building of the Regent’s Canal.

Below is a link to the 1806 version of Bernard’s text which is very short and well worth reading.  Also some contemporary images of rural scenes and cottage gardens and a link to Margaret Willes’s The Gardens of the Working Classes – an extraordinary survey of gardens belonging to ordinary working people in the UK.

An Account of a Cottage and Garden in Tadcaster. Sir Thomas Bernard, 1797 (Wikimedia Commons)

Account of Britton Abbot’s cottage and garden : and of a cottager’s garden in Shropshire : to which is added Jonas Hobson’s advice to his children, and the contrast between a religious and sinful life. 1806 (Biodiversity Heritage Library)

The Natural History of Selborne 1789 (The Wellcome Library)

Hanging Washing with Pigs and Chickens 1797 Thomas Bewick (Wikimedia Commons)

Wheat, beans, peas

published by Yale University Press

Account of Britton Abbot’s Cottage and Garden 1806

(from the Biodiversity Heritage Library)

Sir Thomas Bernard

The Gardens of the British Working Class

Parkinson’s Tulips

Leave a reply

Autumn is the time to plant tulips, so it seems strangely apt that John Parkinson (1567 – 1650) should describe a yellow tulip grown in the early 17th century as having the colour of a dead leaf;

     A sullen or smoakie yellow, like a dead leaf that is fallen, and therefore called, Fuille mort

He describes other yellow tulips just as evocatively,

     A faire gold yellow

     A Strawe colour       

     A Brimstone colour pale yellowish greene 

     A pale cloth of gold colour

     A Custard colour a pale yellow shadowed over with a browne ..

Written in English, Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629) (or, Park-in-Sun’s Terrestrial Paradise) by apothecary and botanist John Parkinson describes how English gardens were cultivated in the early 17th century. Divided into three sections Parkinson discusses the flower garden, kitchen garden and fruit garden with instructions how to ‘order’ or set these out, as well as giving advice about improving the soil, garden tools and the cultivation of plants.  Most of the illustrations were original woodcuts by the German artist Christopher Switzer. Parkinson was apothecary to James I and royal botanist to Charles I.  His garden was in Long Acre, London, close to Trafalgar Square.

In the book Parkinson lists well over one hundred varieties of tulip then available, including the striped, feathered and flamed tulips that were so popular in 17th century.  Amongst them Parkinson lists white tulips with purple edges, a white speckled with a reddish purple which ‘holds its marks constant’, a ‘Crimson Fooles Coate, a dark crimson, and pale white empaled together’, a tulip of a ‘deepe Orenge colour’, ‘a red with small yellow edges’, and a ‘Fooles Cappe, that is, with lists or stripes of yellow running through the middle of every leafe of the red..’

1. The early white and red Tulipa, &c. being of one colour 2. The early purple Tulipa with white edges or the Prince. 3. The early stript Tulipa 4. The early red Tulipa with yellow edges, or the Duke.

Parkinson could not have understood the process by which a viral infection causes the pigment in tulip petals to ‘break’, and produce the striped effect.  But he makes a remarkable observation connecting the spectacular patterns shown by these tulips with disease.  Parkinson notices a ‘weaknesse‘ or loss of vigour in some plants whose flowers start off as a solid colour, but over several seasons develop the characteristic white streaks, believing this to be caused by a ‘decay of the roote’.

He also links this beauty with transience, identifying the point when the diseased tulip will die, as the moment when the bloom is most beautiful:

       .. this extraordinary beauty in the flower, is but as the brightnesse of a light, upon the very extinguishing thereof, and doth plainly declare, that it can do its master no more service, and therefore with this jollity doth bid him good night.

1. The red Bolonia Tulipa 2. The yellow Bolonia Tulipa 3. The red or yellow dwarfe Tulipa 4. The leafe of the Tulipa of Caffa striped throughout the whole leaf 5. the leafe of the Tulipa of Caffa striped at the edges only 6. the Persian Tulipa 7. the Tulipa of Candie 8. The Tulipa of Armenia

1. The Fooles Coate red and yellow 2. The white Holeas without a bottome 3. The cloth of silver, or other spotted Tulipa 4. The white Fooles Coate 5. a white Holeas, &c. with a purple bottome 6. a red and yellow flamed Tulipa 7. a white striped and spotted Tulipa 8. another variable Tulipa

1. A Tulipa of three colours 2. the Tulipa of Caffa purple, with white stripes 3. A pure Claret wine colour variable 4. Mr Wilmers Gilloflower Tulipa 5. A Crimson with white flames 6. A kind of Zwitser called Goliath 7. A Tulipa called Zwitser 8. Another white Flambant or Fooles Coate 9. The Vermillion flamed 10. The feathered Tulipa red and yellow

The section describing mid-season yellow flowering tulips also contains some intriguing green tulips, one of which is called the Parret.

     Unto these may be added the greene Tulipa, which is also of divers sorts.  One having a great flower of a deep greene colour, seldom opening it self, but abiding alwaies as it were halfe shut up and closed .. Another of a yellowish or palish greene, paned with yellow, and is called, The Parret &c. with white edges. A third of a more yellowish greene, with red or purplish edges ..

Interestingly Parkinson’s parrot tulip does not seem to have the ruffled petals we associate with these flowers today, but it is parti-coloured, meaning that it consists of two or more different colours. This term is still commonly used to describe the plumage of parrots.

The first green tulip mentioned in Parkinson’s list sounds rather like a modern variety Tulipa ‘Evergreen’ which stays green throughout the flowering period.  Others sound like the Viridiflora tulips with the characteristic green bands on the petals.  Many of the modern parrot tulips still show some green colouration in their petals.

The parrots shown below (some of them green) are illustrated by John Jonston (1603 – 1675) and come from a natural history of birds published in 1657.  Psittacus minor looks very much like the ring-necked parakeet, originally from India and now resident in some parts of the UK.

Various parrot and parakeet species from Historiae Naturalis de Avibus 1657

Various parrot species from Historiae Naturalis de Avibus 1657

Leaf (Populus spp), straw, feather from ring-necked parakeet

Link to Parkinson’s text at the Biodiversity Heritage Library:

Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris (John Parkinson)

Link to Historiae naturalis de Avibus libri 6. cum aeneis figuris Johannes Jonstonus, medicinae doctor, concinnavit 1657 (published in Amsterdam)

http://Historiae Naturalis de Avibus

Ring-necked parakeet

RSPB

 

Rabel’s Parterres de Broderie

Leave a reply

Livre de differants desseings de parterres by Daniel Rabel was published in Paris, in 1630 and these plates show a series of designs for his elaborate parterres.

Daniel Rabel (1578 – 1637) was an artist whose work included portraiture, botanical illustration and set designs and costumes for ballet.  He also published several books and established a botanical garden in Blois in the Loire valley.

Rabel’s sophisticated designs are representations of intricate embroidery with plants used as coloured threads to create the overall appearance of a piece of richly decorated fabric.

The scrolling design of these parterres could be made out of low growing herbs; Rabel suggests rosemary, lavender, camomile and thyme.  Sand would have been used for the compartimens or spaces in between the planting. Planning and constructing one of these parterres would have been a major task, making them an option for the wealthy. The embroidery effect could best be appreciated from an elevated position, from the windows of the house (or palace).

The French broderie parterres were developed at the beginning of the 17th century by Claude Mollet. The style was brought to England by Henrietta Maria after her marriage to Charles 1 in 1625, when she employed Mollet to modernise the royal gardens.

Could Rabel’s designs be used as inspiration for a garden today?  Certainly they would be invaluable if you were recreating a parterre in a historic garden specific to 17th century France. But the formality and artificiality of the embroidery concept together with tight control of plants necessary to create such intricate patterns seems out of step with current taste which favours a naturalistic look and lower maintenance planting.

The charming, if romanticised, gardeners pictured at the front of the book have secured a good view of the parterre garden.  She seems to have been gathering fruit while he poses with a spade and other gardening equipment including a large scissors, small sickle, watering can, rake and a line.  He seems to be wearing loose cut culottes, a bit like plus fours.

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/33324#/summary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Rabel

The Making of the English Gardener

John Rea’s Jewel Gardens

Leave a reply

J Rea 01

To understand how a gentleman’s garden might have looked in the mid-17th century, John Rea’s book is a good starting point.  The gardens described are intended for the gentry and possibly the upwardly mobile, (maybe someone of the means and career trajectory of Samuel Pepys). Rea gives instructions for the construction of a fashionable garden to complement a country house, with areas for fruit, vegetables and flowers, which can be scaled up or down depending on the size of the building.

Rea describes himself as a ‘florist’; not an arranger of cut flowers as we understand the term today, but more of a horticultural expert who grew plants for sale and knew how to plant up gardens.

As well areas for growing plants, Rea recommends two essential buildings; an octagonal summer house for entertaining, sheltering from the rain, or sorting through tulip bulbs and a separate store for tools.

The ‘Draughts for Gardens’ which follow are designs for a flower garden, and show geometric beds (the darker areas, which Rea calls ‘Frets’), with gravel pathways between them.  The beds would have been edged with painted wooden boards or with French box, which Rea points out would take about three years to reach maturity and would need to have their roots pruned from time to time, to stop them taking too much goodness from soil and the rest of the plants.

For those who already have an enclosed garden, Rea explains that these designs can be altered to fit the space available

‘And because divers have Gardens already enclosed, that the measure of the forementioned Fret will not fit, I have therefore designed Draughts of several sizes, that every one may take that which best agrees with his ground, and is most proper for his purpose;’

Do the patterns suggested for the flower gardens have a meaning?  According to Rea the arrangement of the flower beds are supposed to represent jewel boxes, with the flowers as the jewels. Reas describes the ‘draughts’ as fashioned ‘in the form of a Cabinet, with several boxes fit to receive, and securely to keep, Natures choicest jewels.’  

Rea’s planting suggestions for the ‘jewel box’ gardens appear throughout his text and include the flowering plants that were most prized at this time.  Rea encourages the garden owner to consider the balance of plants when planting the beds.

‘Now for planting the Beds in the Fret, you must consider every piece, and place the Roots so as those of a kind set in several Beds may answer one another; as in the corners of each Bed the best Crown-Imperials, Lilies, Martagons and such tall flowers; in the middles of the five Squares great Tufts of the best Pionies, and round about them several sorts of Cyclamen; the rest with Daffodils, Hyacinths and such like: the streight Beds are fit for the best Tulips, where account may be kept of them: Ranunculus and Anemonies also require particular Beds; the rest my be set all over with the more ordinary sorts of Tulips, Fritillaries, bulbed Iris and all other kinds of good Roots, in such sort you will find directed where they are described.’

Could these designs be used as inspiration for a modern looking garden in a historical setting? The designs have a scale and authenticity which would match a 17th century house, and there’s no reason why the planting couldn’t be updated, using the perennials and grasses that we like now.  Or perhaps elements could be used; the edging of one of the designs could be introduced somewhere in a modern garden making a link back to the jewel gardens of the past.

JR Parterre 01

JR Parterre 02

JR Parterre 03

JR Parterre 04

JR Parterre 05

JR Parterre 06

JR Parterre 07

JR Parterre 08

A link to Rea’s book at the Biodiversity Heritage Library:

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/50878#/summary

Brian Stephens’ biographical essay on the life and work of John Rea:

http://www.wyreforest.net/2014/01/02/john-rea-florist-of-kinlet-1605-1677-brian-stephens/

Georgian Gardens for Women

Leave a reply

What kind of garden did women want in the late Georgian period?  Maria Elisabetha Jacson (1755 – 1829) thought she knew, and using a lifetime’s interest in botany, wrote this book about designing gardens. The Florist’s Manual, or, Hints for the Construction of a Gay Flower-Garden was published in 1816 and sets out the author’s philosophy of garden design with coloured illustrations showing model garden layouts and lists of plants that could be used in the borders.

The book, which ran to three editions, is aimed at women and Jacson encourages her readers to take an active role in directing how their garden should look, from the shapes of the borders to the choice of plants, rather than leaving it to their gardeners:

A Flower-Garden is now become a necessary appendage of every fashionable residence, and hence it is more frequently left to the direction of a gardener, than arranged by the guidance of genuine taste in the owner;

Two hundred years on, the book remains a valuable resource for information about the design of gardens in the late Georgian period, and which plants were available and fashionable. In terms of scale, these are not gardens for stately homes, but for the aspirational middle classes.

ME Jackson 02a

ME Jackson 07a

Plate 1

ME Jackson 08aa

ME Jackson 08ab

Jacson’s recipe for successful planting is a ‘mingled flower-garden’ in which plant species are combined for their beautiful and naturalistic effect and for ‘a succession of bloom’. This a break with the common practice she describes of grouping the same species of plants together in formal beds. Jacson explains the disadvantage of this form of planting, which is that once the flowers are over there is a gap.

.. in some gardens this appearance of a whole is entirely destroyed by the injudicious taste of setting apart distinct borders for pinks, hepaticas, primulas, or any other favourite kinds of flowers;

.. these distinct borders, although beautiful in themselves, break that whole which should always be presented to the eye by the mingled flower-garden; as single beds, containing one species only, form a blank before that species produces its flowers, and a mass of decaying leaves when the glow of their petals is no more.

The book contains extensive lists of colour co-ordinated groups of plants with times of flowering from February to August so that readers could apply her plant selections to their own gardens.  From her list of plants ‘red shade from pink to scarlet’ we might choose Hyacinths and primulas for February to May followed by Cistus, Gaura (red and white striped flowers) and Mondara didyma from May to October.  Interestingly Jacson prefers to group similar colours together rather than mixing contrasting colours together.

Jacson suggests using groups of the same plant so that the planting scheme doesn’t look fragmented, advice which feels startlingly contemporary;

.. without frequent repetition of the same plant, it will be in vain to attempt a brilliant flower-garden

Jacson admits that designing a garden or border is quite a difficult thing to do successfully, which, for anyone who has tried, is hard to disagree with?

It is more difficult than may at first appear, to plan, even upon a small scale, such a piece of ground; nor perhaps, would any but an experienced scientific eye be aware of the difficulties to be encountered in the disposal of a few shaped borders interspersed with turf. 

The Florist’s Manual is available online at the Wellcome Library and The Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Wellcome Library

Biodiversity Heritage Library