2019 on the blog

Posted on 28/12/2019 by The Garden History Blog

I’m amazed to think that the blog has now been running for 6 years,  and like all 6 year olds it’s still growing. This year there have been about 55,000 hits, made by about 26,000 visitors.   I’m also amazed that this is the 310th post which means I’ve probably written well over six hundred thousand words of wisdom.  Be warned that there almost as many more in the pipeline – some just a  title, others a series of notes or images, while a few are nearing completion.  Ideas are always welcome for other possibilities, especially if they are offbeat, slightly quirky or humorous.

As always, thank you  for the nice comments & for telling your friends about the blog. Remind them it’s easy to sign up just by going to the very bottom of any post and  adding their email address and it will appear, as if by magic, every Saturday morning in time for breakfast.

I couldn’t resist including this stereograph of the statue of “Auld Lang Syne,” Central Park New York

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Christmas with the Vicar and some Naked Ladies

Posted on 21/12/2019 by The Garden History Blog

Hippeastrum “Ferrari”

 

Scratching my head for something suitably seasonal, and having previously looked at poinsettia and mistletoe but reluctant to do the obvious like Christmas Trees, holly or ivy, it occurred to me that very little has been written about Naked Ladies…. in a horticultural sense at least!

As I’m sure you could tell from the pictures I’m not talking about the obvious but about amaryllis. Who hasn’t fallen for the voluptuous charms of those huge brightly coloured trumpets, either to brighten up their own windowsill or as safe and acceptable Christmas present for their mother-in-law, next-door neighbour or work colleague? Showy, long lasting and, even better, usually not very expensive. What’s not to like?

So why does the caption say Hippeastrum?   What’s it got to do with a Church of England vicar? And where are the naked ladies?

 

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Goldring and Public Parks

Posted on 14/12/2019 by The Garden History Blog

A couple of weeks ago I began  looking at the work of  William Goldring, the prolific landscape and garden designer who died one hundred years ago this year. In England, he is supposedly associated with work on more than 700 projects, many of them public parks and open spaces or the grounds of institutions, but even in his own day he was often overlooked.

His obituary in Gardener’s Chronicle  starts its appreciation by saying “we gather” these are some of the places he worked, before listing just a handful of public sites.

 

 

 

 

Today’s post is going to look at a few of these public park commissions.

 

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The adventures of Maria Graham

Posted on 07/12/2019 by The Garden History Blog

As most people know the role of women in  garden history – ok all history – has been under-recorded and severely underrated.  But things are changing. In particular women’s  place  in the study and collection of plants in the late 18th and early 19thc has been the subject of much research and re-evaluation in recent years.  Not only did women start writing books about botany – admittedly originally aimed mainly at children and  their own sex – but there’s plenty of evidence they collected, grew and studied plants too.  Of course most of that was  done within easy reach of where they lived, but a few, notably the wives and daughters of “empire-builders” [those in commerce, the army or navy and government officials] were able to travel overseas and continue to pursue their interests. Such work  usually ended when their husband or fathers  finished a tour of duty, or died.   But today’s post  is about  Maria Graham,  an adventurous woman who decided her husband’s death was not going to be the end of her life as well…

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“An easy first in his profession”

Posted on 30/11/2019 by The Garden History Blog

If you’re someone who reads this blog regularly then you can probably name many of Britain’s great garden designers, but who is/was the most prolific?  Was it Capability Brown with more than 200 major projects? Gertrude Jekyll who is now thought to have had a hand in over 400? Humphry Repton?  William Sawrey Gilpin?  Percy Cane? Whoever you’ve guessed I doubt  it was today’s subject, or that they would even have figured on your shortlist.

Here’s a clue. This year marks the centenary of his death which followed  a long career that spanned journalism, designing the grounds at the new exhibition centre at Earls Court, and laying out the gardens of vast new palaces in India as well as many parks and gardens in Britain. Yet nowadays  his name is virtually unknown.

So who was this horticultural workaholic? Continue reading →

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