Almost eighty years after her death, Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) is still one of the most influential of all English garden designers. Best known for her superb use of colour schemes in her hallmark flower borders, she combined an early training in art with self taught horticultural skills. Early influences included William Morris, John Ruskin and William Robinson but it is her partnership with the architect Edwin Lutyens that produced some of the most distinctive of Edwardian houses and gardens. From her house (and nursery) at Munstead Wood, Surrey, Jekyll designed over 400 gardens across...
Almost eighty years after her death, Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) is still one of the most influential of all English garden designers. Best known f...
This is the intriguing story of garden gnomes and how they have come to reside in the flowerbeds of gardens across Britain. Originating in Europe, gnomes made the leap across the channel in the nineteenth century, where they were welcomed warmly by wealthy Brits who saw them as the must-have garden accessory. But the fortunes of the humble gnome were not to last, and they soon found themselves sneered at by serious gardeners. Turned away from fashionable gardens, the little gnomes found a friend in many a working class gardener, who adopted them in increasing numbers, and in a variety of...
This is the intriguing story of garden gnomes and how they have come to reside in the flowerbeds of gardens across Britain. Originating in Europe, gno...
Hollyhocks and cabbages, roses and runner beans: the English cottage garden combines beauty and utility, pride and productivity. Immortalized in images of thatched cottages with flower-filled borders and ducks on the path, what was the reality of the cottage garden?
For many the garden was essential to keep food on the table. For those more fortunate, the garden was a blaze of color and a status symbol. Gardens did not just appeal to the senses, however; they played a philosophical and moral role in British society, and thus in British social history. Visions of the rural cottager...
Hollyhocks and cabbages, roses and runner beans: the English cottage garden combines beauty and utility, pride and productivity. Immortalized in im...
Produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, the "Allotment and Garden Guides" were issued monthly throughout 1945. Aimed at the amateur gardener, they were to be the final rallying call in the wartime campaign to Dig for Victory. Concentrating on the productive garden, the guides were designed to take the amateur gardener through the basic tasks of each month. Many of the subjects tackled are as relevant now as they were then. How to make a compost heap, when to sow marrow seed, which seeds are they easiest to save, are still popular topics in the modern gardening media. However, other subjects...
Produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, the "Allotment and Garden Guides" were issued monthly throughout 1945. Aimed at the amateur gardener, they we...
'This War is a Food War...' In 1941 Lord Woolton, Minister for Food, was determined that the Garden Front would save England: 'Dig for Victory' was the slogan, digging for dinner the reality. With food imports dwindling the number of allotments grew, millions opted to 'Spend an Hour with a Hoe' instead of an hour in a queue, and the upper classes turned lawns, tennis courts and stately gardens over to agriculture. The national diet was transformed, with swedes grown in the place of oranges and hapless children sucking on carrot lollies; evacuees grew their own meals and bomb sites sprouted...
'This War is a Food War...' In 1941 Lord Woolton, Minister for Food, was determined that the Garden Front would save England: 'Dig for Victory' was th...
