Mrs Andrews in the garden at Auberies,                             a  detail from Gainsborough’s Mr & Mrs Andrews. But what is she holding? and why was the portrait painted outside? All may be revealed on the post!

APOLOGIES IF YOU ARE RECEIVING THIS POST LATE OR FOR A SECOND TIME

WordPress discovered a glitch which blocked about half my mailing list  so they have told me I need to repost it.

Continuing my trip down Memory Lane this week I want to recall some of the many gardens I’ve covered in these posts.   I’ve written about 120 as the main subject but with many more looked at incidentally. Although most have been in Britain I’ve also written about several in other parts of the world.  They’ve included gardens from the early medieval period to contemporary creations as well as a few from  ancient civilisations. There are historic survivals,  adaptations, restorations,  re-imaginings and even gardens which no longer exist.  If you’re a regular reader see how many you recall or know and if you’re a recent discoverer of the blog, just look and see what you’ve been missing. To discover  more click on the links, but don’t worry I’m not planning on covering all 121+  in what can only be a lightning tour! Instead to make life simpler for myself I”m concentrating on those where women had a significant role in their creation or survival.

detail from one of the late 17thc Stoke Edith hangings, now in the V&A

Continue reading →

Mrs Andrews in the garden at Auberies,                             a  detail from Gainsborough’s Mr & Mrs Andrews. But what is she holding? and why was the portrait painted outside? All may be revealed on the post!

APOLOGIES IF YOU ARE RECEIVING THIS POST LATE OR FOR A SECOND TIME

WordPress discovered a glitch which blocked about half my mailing list  so they have told me to repost it.

Continuing my trip down Memory Lane this week I want to recall some of the many gardens I’ve covered in these posts.   I’ve written about 120 as the main subject but with many more looked at incidentally. Although most have been in Britain I’ve also written about several in other parts of the world.  They’ve included gardens from the early medieval period to contemporary creations as well as a few from  ancient civilisations. There are historic survivals,  adaptations, restorations,  re-imaginings and even gardens which no longer exist.  If you’re a regular reader see how many you recall or know and if you’re a recent discoverer of the blog, just look and see what you’ve been missing. To discover  more click on the links, but don’t worry I’m not planning on covering all 121+  in what can only be a lightning tour! Instead to make life simpler for myself I”m concentrating on those where women had a significant role in their creation or survival.

detail from one of the late 17thc Stoke Edith hangings, now in the V&A

Continue reading →

Happy 100th Anniversary  Marion Cran

Welcome to my 500th post. 

To celebrate I’m going to take it a bit easier for the rest of this month and just do some  trips down Memory Lane.

Today in particular, I hope regular readers remember the piece I wrote in 2018 about  Marion Cran because 100 years ago last week she became the first person to do a radio broadcast about gardening.   The first of her Gardening Chats went out on 2LO, the forerunner of the BBC, on August 6th 1923  for which she was paid the princely sum of 5 guineas.

Marion Cran was a really interesting character, now almost totally forgotten but she’s not the only overlooked gardener I’ve written about so see how many others you recognise – or might have missed – from these much earlier posts…click on the links to be taken straight to them!

And of course it would be remiss me of me not to remind you that I publicised Barbie’s interest in gardening  long before the film came out

Barbie in Malaga’s Botanic Garden at La Concepción

So do you remember … Continue reading →