The Garden History Blog

The Garnden of Eden, by Lucas Cranach or his workshop, c1530

Summer time is always associated with garden visiting but the next few posts are going to be about a garden you’re unlikely ever to be able to visit.  Yet it’s probably the most well known and most talked about garden in the world.

Ask yourself what you actually know about the Garden of Eden. I bet  the answer will be not very much more than the Bible story in the Book of Genesis.  You might also know that there are other Biblical references but I’d be surprised if you could actually recall much of what  any of these description say?

So why does Eden have such a strong hold over our imaginations?

Embroidered panel of the Garden of Eden, English undated late 16thc, Metropolitan Museum, [CCO]

 “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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