This is the first time in the 8 years I’ve been writing the blog that Christmas has fallen on a Saturday, but I didn’t want to break my unbroken record of posting every week!
So I thought I’d just say…
A very Happy Christmas to you all… and if you really do want something garden history related to fill the odd moment between crackers, carols and carousing then read on …. Continue reading
One of things that I’ve always found fascinating about the history of gardens is the inventiveness of gardeners, and I don’t think there’s a period in horticultural history quite as inventive as the early 19thc. That doesn’t mean that their inventions always work, or even if they did that they stood the test of time.
Sometimes these horticultural innovators are well known but mostly, like Robert Gauen who I’ve written about before they’re not. Sometimes they’re well recorded but mostly they’re not and even when they are there’s usually a bit of serendipity involved in their survival.
That’s the case with today’s subject. I discovered him when I was researching a post about the transplantation of trees because he’d invented a new variation of the machinery involved. In the process I discovered that he’d invented a whole range of other garden-related contraptions and gadgets. So if you’re still looking for Christmas presents for your gardening friends see if you can find something devised by Mr Saul of Lancaster.
Gardens are ephemeral creations and surely impossible to recreate once they’ve gone. That hasn’t stopped a lot of people trying. This is a trend that’s first noticeable in the early 19thc when it tended to be a romanticised view of past gardens that were installed. But the first real evidence-based attempt happened at Kirby, the great Elizabethan mansion in Northants, when in the 1930s archaeological techniques were used to discover and then try to recreate the early 17thc garden.
That wouldn’t have been necessary of course if Kirby hadn’t fallen first into decline and then ruin, so let’s begin the story of how Kirby has been re-imagined with and why it had to be done in the first place!
Northampton Mercury 23rd March 1934
Last week I looked at the discovery of the Monkey Puzzle tree by Europeans and at the very first specimens introduced to Britain by Archibald Menzies, and today I’m going to look at how it was introduced to British gardens on a grand scale.
Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere it doesn’t really have that much to do with William Lobb and the famous Veitch nursery of Exeter despite all their self-publicity.
I’ll also look at where it got its common name from – especially since there are no monkeys in Chile who might be puzzled by it.
![Araucaria araucana (Molina) K. Koch [as Araucaria imbricata Pavon] araucaria, Chilean pine, monkey puzzle tree Houtte, L. van, Flore des serres et des jardin de l’Europe, vol. 15: t. 1577 (1845)](https://thegardenhistory.blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/147325.jpg)
Araucaria araucana
from Flore des serres et des jardin de l’Europe, v15
Ambrosio O’Higgins
1720-1801
Believe it or not it is all supposed to have begun with a banquet given in April 1795 by the wonderfully-named Ambrosio Bernardo O’Higgins, and an unusual dish that he served!
But of course you should never believe everything you’re told…
The Garden History Blog 
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