Easter is always a difficult time for garden-related bloggers – there’s only a limited and rather obvious range of possibilities – bunnies, chocolate, easter lilies, ,passion flowers, chickens and eggs and over the last 12 years I’ve done most of them. Then I remembered a lovely story in a lecture I give about one of the nicest people in garden history that took place one Easter.
We know gardening appeals to a very wide range of people but is it a classless pursuit? Is there any real connection between the wealthy and their ability to garden on a grand scale: think paid staff, stately homes, Gardens Illustrated and Chelsea…and the rest of us, constrained for space, time and money: think suburban back gardens, Gardener’s World and the local garden centre?
Perhaps not as much as we might like and one person who definitely thought there ought to be more, was the Rev. Samuel Reynolds Hole, Canon of Lincoln, later Dean of Rochester and a great rose enthusiast. His sympathies are clear: “Not a soupçon of sympathy can I ever feel for the discomfiture of those Rose-growers who trust in riches .”
Read on to find out why….and to hear about the surprising people he thought were the real gardeners.
Appearances can be deceptive. A couple of days ago I took a train out into what was once the countryside surrounding Lisbon, hoping to see a garden that 
The Garden History Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.