The Garden History Blog

 “Blue Jacket and Blue Hydrangeas”, Portrait of Lynn Fontanne by Wilfrid de Glehn, c1887 Public Domain

We’ve been having a bit of a hydrangea-fest here recently. Over the last couple of years my partner has become more and more interested in growing them and we’ve been visiting gardens in both Britain and France to see more.  

What’s surprised me is what  a wide range of colours, sizes and forms we’ve seen even within the same species. Apart from those already dotted around the garden, we’ve got  fingers crossed about 50 cuttings sitting in cold frames which we hope will be ready to join them next year.  

It set me thinking about where hydrangeas came from,  how they reached our gardens and have been hybridised and developed,

and why they still have a somewhat rather dour reputation summed up in a poem by Moniza Alvi

“The hydrangeas are massing

in gardens cherished by aunts

Grimly ornamental, by tiled paths…”

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Would you have guessed this was an underwater garden rather than a mountain gorge?

Today’s post is a  look at what has become  more trendily known as “aquascaping” rather than the rather the more mundane sounding “underwater gardening” which I wrote about last week.

If I’m honest I’d never heard of “aquascaping” until recently, and my ignorance was revealed when I discovered there were lots of recent books and websites dedicated to it. I thought it must be a modern invention but as I started researching I discovered that the story begins quite a bit earlier ….

Take a look later at some of the hundreds of aquascapes entered into AGA’s competitions

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From The aquarium: an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea, by Philip Gosse, 1856

I’m writing this as the rain lashes down outside – again – but it’s not, as the title might suggest,  a post about how to manage a flooded garden, instead it’s another one about water gardens, but water gardens with a difference.

While there’s a long history of water gardens in virtually every country across the globe virtually all of them were, until quite recently, outside in the open air.

If you think about indoor water gardens you probably imagine fountains, basins and goldfish, perhaps in a Victorian conservatory or a Georgian grotto. I bet you didnt think much about water plants and what place they might have, so  today’s post is going to look at aquatic plants indoors in what might be called the dawning of the age of aquaria…

from The Aquavivarium  , by Edwin Lankester, 1856

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One of the pavilions at Piercefield. Photo by Paul White. 2005. One of an evocative series of black and white photos on his  website about Welsh ruins

Last week’s post looked at the creation of the picturesque landscape at Piercefield, near Chepstow.

Today I’m going to look at the decline  and fall of the estate and how all the conservation and heritage protections in the world still haven’t managed to save a Grade II* listed building and Grade 1 listed landscape from dereliction.

 The early part of the decline is sad, but the later part is more than sad – it is shocking.

Piercefield before its almost total collapse, photo courtesy of Mike Freeman

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Detail of Piercefield Mansion and Park, G. Eyre Brooks c. 1840. (© Chepstow Museum)

These days Garden visiting is a popular pastime but actually it has been so since at least the 18thc  and one of the earliest estates to become a tourist attraction in its own right  is Piercefield, which stands above the river Wye near Chepstow in Monmouthshire.  Largely dating from the mid-18thc century and often described a “picturesque” or “sublime” landscape it’s  had a very chequered ownership and history  but  featured in all the early guide books as a must-see site.  As a result visitors flocked to visit, and they still do even though the house is now in a state of complete ruin and the grounds a shadow of their former selves…

View on the Wye, Thomas Hearne,undated late 18thc, © The Trustees of the British Museum

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