Author Archives: The Garden History Blog

No – I know it’s not Saturday but….I’m going to break my own rules just for once because  I want to  invite you to join me for a free on-line  “open evening”  next Tuesday, 25th June  at 6.30 to discover … Continue reading →

Last week I felt as if I had stepped back into the 18th century when I visited a garden where the basic original layout from the 1740s has been slowly restored over the past fifty years. Perhaps nothing unusual about … Continue reading →

I’m writing this during Chelsea Week which is quite appropriate because the  famous marquee  is usually put up on the site of the long demolished Rotunda in what was once Ranelagh Gardens. There  have been commercial pleasure gardens  in London … Continue reading →

Japanese culture, plants and gardens took the western world by surprise – and by storm – in the second half of the 19th century. But how did that happen to a country which had been in virtually total isolation for … Continue reading →

In 1893 Josiah Conder wrote the first book by a European about Japanese gardens, which   has been the single greatest influence on Japanese garden design in the West.  Yet  given that Japanese plants and gardens in the Japanese style … Continue reading →