Garden History Matters

Kitab fi al-adwiyah al-mufradah

2013-03-12T13:28:00.000+01:00

Unless your Arabic is up to it the title of this post will mean nothing in and of itself. But I should like to draw your attention to a fascinating feature from McGill Publications that I just came across while researching early Herbals.

The translation of Kitab fi al-adwiyah al-mufradah is 'The Book of Simple Drugs', it was written in Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain) in the 12th century by Abu Ja’far al-Ghafiq (d.1165). One of the foremost Arab physicians and scholars of

his time, Abu Ja’far al-Ghafiq drew heavily on the work of earlier Greek botanists including Dioscorides (1st century CE) and Galen (2nd century CE), and earlier fellow Muslim scholars including Abu Hanifah al-Dinawari (d.895), Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (d.925), and Ibn Samajun (d.1001).

The manuscript is unicum - that is to say the only known copy of this work, and is now housed in the McGill University's Osler Library of the History of Medicine.

The Ghafiq i Project hosted at McGill aims is to produce a three-volume work, a facsimile of the original manuscript, a translation and a collection of scholarly commentary.

Spode & Curtis

2013-03-05T13:23:00.000+01:00

Cyclamen coum on plate and paper (below)

Thanks to Val Bott for bringing the following to my attention. Its always interesting to see how different art forms influence each other, in this case botanical illustration on porcelain decoration.

The post by Pam Woolliscroft author of Spode History tells about the botanical designs employed by Spode in the 19th century and which were inspired by the plates in Curtis's Botanical Magazine. The magazine was founded by William Curtis in 1787. Samuel succeeded to the editorship of the magazine in 1827 selling his rights in 1846. Curtis's Botanical Magazine (1801-1920) is downloadable for free from our good friends at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Spode is a Stoke-on-Trent based pottery company that was founded by Josiah Spode (1733-1797) in 1770. Josiah Spode earned renown for perfecting under-glaze blue transfer printing in 1783-1784 – a development that led to the launch in 1816 of Spode’s Blue Italian range which has remained in production ever since. Josiah Spode is also often credited with developing a successful formula for fine bone china.

A snip at €2,413

A modern example of the same would be Royal Copenhagen's beautiful - but expensive - Flora Danica collection.

Heirloom / Heritage Fruit & Veg

2013-03-01T12:49:00.000+01:00

A big thank you to Kate Spirgen and A Garden Life for the interview about Heirloom Fruits & Vegetables. The article can be read here.

The History of Street Trees

2013-02-28T10:14:00.000+01:00

A month or so ago I discovered Sustainable Cities Collective, from which I have learned a huge amount and developed a great respect for their contributors.

Photo Credit: DeepRoot

I posted a feature about a couple of weeks back about Historic Gardens being Biodiversity Hotspots and today I would like to offer you another insightful piece by L. Peter MacDonagh, this time about the History of Street Trees. Do read and enjoy.

Garden History Course

2013-02-27T12:38:00.000+01:00

Interesting in digging a little deeper or wanting to discover a whole lot more about global garden history? Then please do do come and join my on-line garden history course.

The course is a month in duration, and there is one video lecture and optional assignment for each of the four weeks. The format enables you to study at your own pace and I throughout the month I am there to answer questions and queries and to provide feedback on assignments.

Hosted by My Garden School the course begins on March 02.

Here's a taster from the first lecture:

Seminar on Japanese Gardens

2013-02-26T12:33:00.000+01:00

The Research Center for Japanese Garden Art and Historical Heritage, in Kyoto, Japan, runs an annual English language intensive seminar regarding the Japanese Garden. The course is designed for the serious student, amateur or professional and is a rare opportunity for English language speakers, giving broad access to Japanese gardens and gardeners. It is not a garden tour.

The Centre is currently accepting applications for review and selection for the 15th seminar to be held in October of 2013. In order to provide maximum personal attention, the course is limited to a maximum of students. More details via the link above.

Jane Loudon

2013-02-22T12:48:00.000+01:00

Jane Loudon 1807-1858

Garden historians are generally familiar with the hugely prolific, workaholic 19th century garden designer and garden-writer, John Claudius Loudon. Most of his works are available from the Biodiversity Heritage Library for free - just follow this link.

However, he was married to an equally fascinating woman, Jane Loudon (née Webb). Jane was not only a pioneer of science fiction (The Mummy! was published in 1827) but also a pioneer in encouraging ladies to garden - genteelly of course!

Jane was the author of five books and one magazine and her highly popular and influential Instruction on Gardening for Ladies (1840) has been reprinted by Oxford University Press and both the tome and the author as the subject of yet another fascinating post from the Cambridge Library Collection.

Do take a read and learn more about Mrs. Loudon

A Call for Papers

2013-02-21T15:00:00.000+01:00

The 10th Garden Historical Research Colloquium will be be held at the Technical University Munich-Weihenstephan between 19 and 22 September 2013.

The Organizers are asking for abstracts from current or recently finished doctoral dissertations and research projects within a garden historical context. Deadline 4 March 2013, and for more details email Stefan Schweizer.

The Parks and Gardens UK

2013-02-20T13:27:00.000+01:00

More Good News. The Parks and Gardens UK website (a partnership between The Association of Gardens Trusts and the University of York) has been revamped and was relaunched. As the homepage states, Parks & Gardens UK.

‘is the leading on-line resource for historic parks and gardens providing freely accessible, accurate and inspiring information on UK parks, gardens and designed landscapes and all activities concerned with their promotion, conservation and management’.

Do take a look....

Gardening for the Disabled

2013-02-19T10:56:00.000+01:00

Repton's business card

An interesting post, as always, from GardenHistoryGirl that examines the work of Humphry (it is spelt without an 'e') Repton who was the first to write about gardening for the disabled.

As the result of a coach crash Repton used a wheelchair for the last two years of his life and was likely the inventor of the raised bed which allowed those so confined to garden. He even illustrated the concept in his Fragments on the theory and practice of landscape gardening (1818).

And just for reference, many of Repton's books are available for free as pdfs from those great folk at the Biodiversity Heritage Library (the link is to the Repton page).

Quincunx

2013-02-15T15:16:00.004+01:00

Today's guest post is by Debs Wiles. Thank you @dawiles.

Recently a friend who is starting up a new landscaping business asked my opinion on a logo design. My friend's mission is to create and maintain gardens that appeal to all of our five senses and he was sketching out logos that contained images pertaining to each sense. Naturally, I immediately thought of a Quincunx, a geometric pattern of five points arranged on a cross.

Cosmatesque floor pattern

The term comes from the Latin quinque + uncia, literally translating to “five ounces”. It has applications in the sciences of botany, astronomy, and modern computer science, not to mention the practices of architecture, agriculture, horticulture, and a style of geometric decorative inlay stonework called Cosmati, or Cosmatesque (Harry Potter fans may recognize this style on the inlaid marble floors of Gringotts Bank).

Sir Thomas Browne (above), a 17th century luminary, wrote a lengthy and formidable essay on the Quincunx (The Garden of Cyrus also entitled The Quincunciall, Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, naturally, artificially, mystically considered, 1658). In it he quotes Quintilian, a 1st century Roman rhetorician who uses the term in his Institutio Oratoria, first published c.95 AD: “Quid [illo] quincunce speciosius, qui, in quamcumque partem spectaveris, rectus est?" which translates roughly, "What is more beautiful than the quincunx, that, from whatever direction you regard it, presents straight lines?" In context, Quintilian is discussing beauty and utility and writes, “Shall not beauty, then, it may be asked, be regarded in the planting of fruit trees? Undoubtedly; I should arrange my trees in a certain order, and observe regular intervals between them.” He recognizes that planting trees at regular intervals is also advantageous to their growth and health “as each of them then attracts an equal portion of the juices of the soil...”.

The quincuncial arrangement of flower petals in bud, as seen in the rose family. Attrib

Browne's work recounts the military conquests of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire, and especially his achievements in gardening, crediting him with the creation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Cyrus was “not only a Lord of Gardens, but a manual planter thereof; disposing his trees like his armies in regular ordination. So that while old Laertas hath found a name in Homer for pruning hedges, and clearing away thorns and briars; while King Attalus lives for his poisonous plantations of Aconites, Henbane, Hellebore, and plants hardly admitted with the walls of Paradise; While many of the Ancients do poorly live in the single names of Vegetables; All stories do look upon Cyrus, as the splendid and regular planter”.

A Quincunx Orchard. Attrib.

A recurring theme in Browne is the regularity created by the quincunx pattern which in Roman times symbolized an orderly world, something Romans were very keen on. The quincunx is still the basis for planting an orchard today and in the Middle Ages, it was one of the patterns used for planting medicinal or exotic plants. In Christianity it symbolized the five wounds of Christ on the cross and a sanctified universe. The arrangement of the cross-in-square used in church architecture from the early 9th to 13th centuries was often expressed three dimensionally – a larger central bay surmounted with a dome framed by four smaller bays likewise surmounted by smaller domes. It's an arrangement that can be seen in 18th century garden follies inspired by the Italian Renaissance, such as the Temple of Four Winds at Castle Howard, with the central bay surrounded by four porticoes.

DaVinci's sketch illustrating quincunx in branch arrangement. Attrib

Browne asserts that the term quincunx was “in use long before Varro”, a 1st century BC Roman scholar. Varro was widely read by Quintilius and also by Pliny the Elder, who wrote extensively on nature and the ideal arrangement for gardens. Vitruvius read Varro and DaVinci read Vitruvius.

Students of art and architecture during the Italian Renaissance read them all, and applied their theories to their creations. Through these early scholars and down through history, the quincunx is still in use in garden design today. When you see the rows of an orchard planted with military precision, or a mass of bedding plants neatly laid out waiting to be installed, you are most likely looking at a quincunx.

N.B. from Toby. Cyrus's garden at Pasargardæ (a UNESCO World Heritage site) contained the prototype quadripartite garden, a Persian garden form that subsequently so influenced the Islamic chahar bagh.

Kew Directors' Correspondence

2013-02-14T15:53:00.000+01:00

Today a big thank you to Virginia Mills of the Kew Directors' Correspondence Digitisation project at Royal Botanic Garden, Kew who has kindly written the following and fascinating guest post...

The team and I are @kewdc on Twitter, it was through Twitter that we struck up a dialogue with @gardenhistory over a mutual interest in intrepid botanist/explorer David Douglas (more on him later).

KewDC stands for Kew Directors' Correspondence and over here behind the scenes in the library at Kew Gardens the Directors' Correspondence team is busy digitising letters from the gardens' archive. We scan the letters using a high resolution digital camera and also summarise their content pulling out important information about plants, gardens, places and botanists past, to create a description of each letter's content. This 'metadata' is uploaded alongside the images to a fabulous website called Jstor plant science - a huge repository of plant based information, with many international contributors besides Kew, combining digitised historical documents, plant specimens and drawings, as well as published works.

One of my fellow digitisers imaging a letter

So that's what we get up to during our working week but what exactly is the material we are putting out there? The Directors' Correspondence, one of the largest collections within Kew's official archive, is a unique resource, containing firsthand accounts and observations on botany, botanic gardens, ethnobotany, natural history, history, science and politics. The 218 volume collection contains the scientific correspondence received by Kew's Directors and senior staff from the 1840s to 1928, as well as correspondence received by Sir William Jackson Hooker prior to 1841. The collection highlights the important role played by RBG Kew in furthering 19th and early 20th Century botanical investigation and also its significance to the growth and development of the British Empire.

Kew was instrumental in helping the British Empire make the most of the natural plant resources in its vast territories and this was done through a network of gardeners, botanic gardens, experimental gardens and nurseries across the world all corresponding with the Directors at RBG, Kew. So the DC represents not just a history of Kew as a garden but of botanic gardens throughout the world: of their origin, development and day to day running. For example the collection includes over 500 letters from Calcutta Botanic Garden.

The collection also represents the history of what we have in our back gardens today. Horticulture was big business in the 18th and 19th century. As the proliferation of shows and exhibitions of goods from around the empire fuelled the desire for all things new and exotic, plant hunters were sent out by nurseries, by the Royal Horticultural Society and by RBG Kew to find new interesting and ornamental plants. The DC includes letters from some of the great Victorian explorers and botanists who introduced many of today's common British garden plants, some of whom are remembered in the names of the plants they collected.

But not all the people who can take credit for these introductions were actually employed as plant hunters and most are not well known or remembered. A favourite 'amateur collector' of mine represented in the DC is Augustine Henry who collected in China and Taiwan; he was not a trained botanist and plant hunting wasn't his job, he was posted in the orient as a customs officer. His letters are fascinating accounts of remote regions and fields of botany, which have now been lost to progress, but provided rich pickings for Henry at the end of the 19th Century. He sent over 15,000 dried plant specimens to Kew, material which included 25 new genera and 500 new species, many of which were suited to the climate of the British garden and his success prompted other sponsored collectors to be sent to China. In 1935 J.W. Besant wrote: 'The wealth of beautiful trees and flowering shrubs which adorn gardens in all temperate parts of the world today is due in a great measure to the pioneer work of the late Professor Henry'. See the letters on Jstor here.

The beautiful Lilium henryi, collected by Henry and named after him, appeared in the 1891 Curtis Botanical Magazine and is still a garden favourite

The professional side of plant hunting is represented in the collection by the likes of David Douglas who was sent by the Royal Horticultural Society to gather plants in the Pacific Northwest in 1824. Douglas is immortalised in the common name of the tree many of us bring in to our houses once a year – the Douglas-fir, which he introduced into cultivation in 1827. Whilst collecting in 1832 Douglas wrote to Kew that: "you will begin to think shortly I manufacture pines" [DC61 f.106]. Indeed his other notable introductions include the Ponderosa Pine, Lodgepole Pine, Western White Pine, Monterey Pine and the Sugar Pine. His life as a collector in North America reads like a 'Boy's Own' adventure – from meetings with native American Indians and fur traders to taming eagles and surviving canoe capsizes. The DC reveals his adventures first hand and with a real personal note. You can read his amusement, for example, when he describes how rival collector Archibald Menzies was known to the Native Americans as "the red faced man who cut the limb of man off and gathered grass" [DC61 f.112]. Conversely, feel his despair when he writes about his canoe being wrecked "I cannot detail the labour and anxiety this occasioned in both body and mind to say nothing of the hardship I endured" and encountering a frontier town decimated by a terrible fever: "not a soul remains!! Houses empty and the flocks of famished dogs howling and dead bodies in every direction" [DC61 f.112].

It seems there was scarcely a botanical letter written in the late 1830's that does not lament Douglas's grizzly death: gored by a bull when he fell into a cattle trap whilst collecting in Hawaii. And then because the 19th century botanist is a gossiping creature in my experience, there comes the epistolary discussion: did he fall or was he pushed?

The DC team scan and read every single letter, particularly difficult when they are cross-written like this one from David Douglas. Here Douglas writes about how dangerous it was when collecting in North California "my rifle is always in my hand night and day. It lays by [my] side under my blanket and my little faithful scotch terrier, the companion of all journeys, at my feet". [DC61 f.96]

David Douglas's letters are part of the North America section of the DC: the latest part of the collection being digitised. This content will go live soon, in the mean time Jstor is replete with the letters from Africa, Latin America and Asia, so go explore!

For more of our favourite stories from the DC check out the Kew Library, Art and Archive blog. And if you have any questions or want more info, email us or contact us through Twitter.

NB from Toby: There is also a whole chapter on Douglas in the Kindle edition of The Plant Hunters.

Historic Gardens = Biodiversity Hotspots

2013-02-13T13:17:00.000+01:00

Heres an interesting article from aka Nature of Cities and posted on the Sustainable Cities Collective website, arguing that historic gardens are not only significant in their own right as expressions of art and components of our socio-cultural heritage, but are also important reserves of biodiveristy within an urban environment (and of course rural ones, too).

Queen Christina’s linden-tree in Grönsöö. Photo: Maria Ignatieva

The author, Maria Ignatieva, who has spent seven years researching the historical and ecological aspects of 18 historic parks and gardens of St. Petersburg, presents a well-argued case, illustrated with international examples from as far a part as Russia, China and Italy. Here is a taster from the piece:

'Over the two decades heritage parks in Europe have been re-evaluated and have begun to be seen as highly valuable urban biodiversity hotspots. Historical parks are not only witnesses of different historical art periods but also are refuges for rare flora and fauna. Very often they contain important fragments of natural landscapes. One of the classical examples of such a garden is Pavlovsky Park in St. Petersburg. The foundation of the park was a local mixed conifer-deciduous forest. This particular park was created by thinning and cutting these natural plant communities.

Parks are also unique living examples of horticultural practices and skills from previous centuries. In the era of unification and using material from 'global' nurseries with genetically modified plants, historical parks contain unique genetic material that could help to preserve national and cultural identity. One of the best examples of such practices can be found in the Swedish historic park of Grönsöö. Here the parental material for linden alleys is the old Tilia tree (Queen Christina’slinden-tree), which was planted here in 1623 during the visit to Grönsöö of King Gustavus Adolphus’s mother.'

Do take a read of the full article.

The historiography of landscape design and management

2013-02-12T12:11:00.001+01:00

Now here is a conference that all landscape architects and garden historians should attend.

The historiography of landscape design and management: why is the profession so disengaged? is to be held at the University of Sheffield on Friday 20 September 2013.

For years I have been asking myself "why is garden history so ignored and unrecognized as an academic discipline?" For no good reason I can see. Garden history is at least as relevant as any other branch of history. Garden art should be as valued as any other art form. But we garden historians are always the 'poor cousins' and its about time this changed.

Garden history should be recognised as a valued as an academic discipline that takes its seat at the table, rather than be practiced under the auspices of departments such as art history, landscape architecture, horticulture or geography.

I hope this Conference will be a step in the right direction. It is targeted at engaging the professional landscape architect (and interested parties), for as the press release points out:

'All professions are proudly self-aware of their origins and intellectual history. All professions, that is, except landscape architecture:

Some practitioners question the relevance of their profession’s history and even pride themselves on their ignorance.
The context of their profession is often inadequately explained to landscape architecture students, who consider this as stultifying creativity.
Landscape architects naively wish their talent to be recognized rather than regard it as a vocation with high principles.
Landscape architecture, unlike some other design professions, such as architecture and art, has a paucity of historians from within its own ranks.

So why is the official profession so resistant to acknowledging its own history?'

Good question! The intention of the conference is to examine ways in which the profession might be more engaged with its historiography, with examples, both from outside and within the discipline of landscape architecture, looking at a range of different methodologies and how they have been, or might be, applied. The organizers would like to explore key principles and ideas, which might help strengthen historiography of landscape architecture and raise its profile in relation to other related topics such as that of art and architecture.

The organizers welcome suggestions for papers, with abstracts of c.300 words by 15 March 2013. They may be submitted to Jan Woudstra: j.woudstra@sheffield.ac.uk or to Sally O’Halloran: sallyohal@hotmail.com

The John Tradescants

2013-02-12T11:46:00.000+01:00

John Tradescant the Elder

A great post from Early American Gardens about the father-and-son plant hunters and gardeners the Johns Tradescants Also illustrated with some lovely images (I especially love the red squirrel!) Take a read and learn about these pioneering and highly influential men who worked in the early to mid-17th century.

Both father and son are buried in the churchyard, or rather now the garden of the Garden Museum in London.

And for the record, posterity has cheated the Tradescants badly. The Ark or collection of curiosities built up by them, and especially by the father was 'acquired' on the son's death by Elias Ashmole. It subsequently became the core of what is now the Ashmolean Museum (the link offers its version of its origins) which for my money should be called the Tradescantia. More on this injustice of history here!

Painshill Conference 2013

2013-02-01T17:42:00.001+01:00

The conference to be held at Painshill on Thursday 10th and Friday 11th October 2013 will discuss ‘Gardens of Association: the Roles and Meanings of Garden Buildings in Eighteenth Century Landscapes’. Specifically, it will explore the ways in which garden buildings have been interpreted from their time of creation to the modern day, and how they relate to the landscapes in which they are placed. Consideration will also be given to how such assessments can be used in the restoration and conservation of buildings in historic landscapes.

The conference will be chaired by Tim Richardson and speakers include: Michael Cousins, Oliver Cox, Dr. Patrick Eyres, Michael Gove, Dr. Richard Hewlings, Dr. Sally Jeffery, Linda Keightley, Dr. Wendy Monkhouse, Trevor Proudfoot, Dr. Sarah Rutherford, Jean Stone, Michael Symes, Richard Wheeler and David Wrightson.

Tickets on sale now: full conference: £175, early bird booking before 31st March 2013: £160 and students: £160.

The Future is Already Here

2013-01-31T16:54:00.001+01:00

I just received a Google Alert message for my keywords 'garden history' and discovered it was a new comment on the Garden History Society (GHS) website Forum from another garden historian 'stephenha' who has some interesting points to make. The link takes you to the page but I have taken the liberty of copying Stephen's text below. I, and I am sure he and the GHS, would value feedback from yous who are interested in garden history, maybe are members of the GHS and also social media users. Feel free to post comments here or on the Forum page.

Embrace the Future or Stagnate

by stephenha.

'I teach garden history to a wide age range of students. If you can deliver the subject without making it stuffy then I find younger students are interested in it and see the relevance to other subjects such as garden design.

In these modern times getting your message across to younger people is vital. Facebook and Twitter are both modern mediums that most young people use. Organisations and Societies now use Facebook and Twitter to get their message across to a global audience. These mediums are used to raise profile and make a global audience aware that the organisation even exists. Do you think that the time has come to follow suit and the Garden History Society has a Facebook account and even Twitter. Yes you can find a tweet on the lecture series but more is needed. I believe this would be extremley popular and attract followers and new members.

I try to encourage some of my students to join the Garden History Society because I believe that now or in the future they will have a part to play and have something to offer. After all to offer the old cliche, younger people are going to be the future of the society and what is really offered to attract the new blood in?

As much as I like looking at the website it does not set the world on fire and does not say come and join us. Some may think I want to dumb down, some may think I want shiny bright things like attracting magpies which is not the case. I just think the time has come to embrace the new IT age.

I also enjoy recieving my copy of the Journal. But again for some younger students one look at the jounal is enough to turn them off garden history for life. I would like to see essays at different levels to entice people in. Students are not all yet at the academic level of the Journal. I say not yet, but some will be, but by then it may be to late.'

Garden History Online

2013-01-30T15:33:00.003+01:00

England's Oldest Garden Gnome!

If you want to know where and when gnomes entered the English garden or as well as discover a whole lot more about global garden history, then do come and join my on-line garden history course.

Hosted by My Garden School the course begins on February 02.

So give those little grey cells a work-out, sign up and learn how fun and fascinating garden history is.

Here's a taster from the first lecture:

William Robinson

2013-01-30T14:20:00.000+01:00

William Robinson

Another super post from Cambridge Library Collection Blog team featuring a biography of one of my heroes, the feisty Irish writer and proselytizer William Robinson (1838-1935.)

'Colonies of Poet's Narcissus and Broad Leaved Saxifrage' from The Wild Garden

In brief, Robinson was a prime force behind the late 19th century change in garden fashions away from the formality of the High Victorian terrace with its geometric beds and bedding schemes to a revival of hardy plants and a naturalistic style.

Edge Hall, Malpas, Cheshire. Lawn garden with hardy flowers in beds and groups' from The English Flower Garden

As a best-selling author and magazine publisher (Gertrude Jekyll was a regular contributor to The Garden) Robinson, a horticulturist, was also instrumental in the so-called 'Battle of Styles' in which he was pitted against the architect Sir Reginald Blomfield who also despised the existing style but wanted to move gardening towards a formal revival based on Tudor and Elizabethan styles. The result was that architect and gardener - Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll - proved that the sum was greater than the total of the two parts, and created their Arts and Crafts masterpieces.

Another Antiquarian Gem

2013-01-18T12:24:00.000+01:00

On the same lines as the last post, another wonderful discovery has been Hortus Penbrochianus. It is posted on a site called The Visual Telling of Stories, which is itself well worth an explore.

This slim tome by Isaac de Caus (1590-1648) contains a series of etchings in the manner of Callot (c.1645/9) showing the formal garden created at Wilton House by the author from 1632. The website has high res images of all the plates from the book showing the overall layout of the Italian Renaissance-inspired garden and close-ups showing details of certain of the features.

Isaac was a French garden designer and architect who arrived in England in 1612 and continued to working in gardens in a similar style to his brother Salomon de Caus. Isaac's work as an architect can be traced from 1623 and he often acted as assistant to Inigo Jones, including at Covent Garden

The design at Wilton, and in particular its ornate parterres, was particularly influential post-Restoration England when the French baroque style epitomised at Versailles and imitated by Charles II became especially fashionable. Sadly, however, the garden is no longer with us but Wilton does have a fine example of a Capability Brown landscape which features one of three Palladian bridges in England. Anyone know where the other two are?

An Unexpected Surprise

2013-01-17T16:41:00.001+01:00

Sometimes its predictable what results a Google search will return - although when I was researching the history of rubber, I began with the keyword 'rubber' and some (in fact a surprising number) of the results were for websites of what one would call a specialist nature!

Be that as it may, sometimes Google throws up something unexpected and when I was looking for historical images of Stowe landscape this week, I got bonus. Within the unprepossessing website called 'English for Architecture' is a page called Classical Readings - and what a gold mine it is.

Here are 11 classic garden history texts including Uvedale Price's An Essay on the Picturesque, William Gilpin's Observations on the River Wye and W H Matthews' Mazes and Labyrinths - and most are beautifully illustrated.

Thank you to the late Roberta Barresi for putting the site together.

The Future Assured for Dyffren House

2013-01-08T11:54:00.000+01:00

Another good news story - this time from the National Trust. Last Friday Dyffryn House and Gardens, near Cardiff in South Wales opened to the public for the first time under the management of the National Trust, which has secured the property and grounds on a 50-year lease from the Vale of Glamorgan Council - there is more about the garden via this link.

The Grade II house and 55 acres of Grade I listed gardens were built and crafted by coal magnate, John Cory, in the late 19th Century.

Mike Calnan, head of gardens at the National Trust, said: “The National Trust is proud and honoured to be taking over stewardship of this very special Welsh garden.

“Dyffryn is an exceptional example of Edwardian garden design - with Thomas Mawson – garden designer - working closely with his gifted client John Cory.

“The gardens are subdivided into a number of garden ‘rooms’ each with its own distinct horticultural character.

“These are surrounded by a pleasure ground of sweeping lawns dotted with statuary, water features, a rockery and kitchen garden and many rare and exceptional trees, including some of the UK’s ‘champions’.

Garden Museum looking for Architect

2013-01-03T10:32:00.003+01:00

According to ProLandscaper, the Garden Museum (@GardenMuseumLDN) in south London is seeking an architect to take forward plans to extend the museum.

Review of My Garden School

2013-01-02T16:52:00.000+01:00

To follow up on my previous post about online / e-learning, please do take a read of this review by The Reckless Gardner (@reckgardener) of My Garden School, which also makes mention of my Garden History course.

Thank you Reckless!

Online Garden History Course

2013-01-02T12:02:00.000+01:00

The monthly cycle is beginning again and my on-line garden history course hosted by My Garden School will be beginning on January 05.

So if you are looking to give those little grey cells a work-out after the festive season, why not sign up and learn how fun and fascinating garden history is.

Here's a taster from the first lecture: