Author Archives: The Garden History Blog

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About The Garden History Blog

Website - www.thegardenhistory.blog

Electroculture

Did you know that the British Government spent the twenty years between the First and Second World Wars investigating the possibilities of electrifying plants?  And did so  in almost complete secrecy.  It means that last week’s perpetually electrified garden wasn’t … Continue reading

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The Electric Garden

I’ve written about many weird and wonderful inventions on here but I think this apparently madcap contraption might  take some beating!  It all started when I stumbled across an unusual engraving  in the Wellcome Collection. There was no background information, … Continue reading

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Happy 400th Birthday Mr Silvestre… Louis should throw you a party

Serendipity strikes!  Last Thursday  just as I was finishing off last week’s post about trompe l’oeil paintings I saw a newsflash on a history website that it was the 400th birthday of Israel Silvestre that very day.   That probably … Continue reading

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Putting Gardens in Perspective ….17thc style

You might have got the impression from the last couple of posts that it was only contemporary gardeners who were capable of doing things in the spirit of the Silly Season  but there are plenty of examples in history too, … Continue reading

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More Madness at Chaumont

I paid my annual trip to the International Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire last week. As a laboratory for contemporary garden and landscape design  for nearly 30 years,  and still full of weird and whacky ideas, Chaumont fits the idea of the … Continue reading

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