History of Gardens – Public Parks

Public parks emerged in England in the 1800s, enabling access to common land for all. In 1835 John Claudius Loudon (1783 - 1845) published "Remarks on Laying out Public Gardens and Promenades" in his publication, The Gardener's Magazine. In the article, Loudon defined a public garden as "a garden into which the public are admitted, either gratuitously, or on the payment of a small fee." He observed that Britain had few public gardens, but that they were becoming more frequently available in Europe, especially in Germany, France, and Spain. He offered that these public gardens were taking the place of ramparts and fortifications, and seemed to be a pledge for the general peace of Europe and release from the ancient and tedious quarrels of the past.

Map of Birkenhead Park and adjoining Villa Sites (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
The map appears in Parks, by Frederick Law Olmsted in American Cyclopaedia, v. 13, p. 103)

In the article, Loudon remarked on public promenades, parks, scientific gardens, landscape gardens, recreational gardens, and gardens for burial. Scientific gardens included zoological, botanical, horticultural, agricultural, arboretums, herbacetums, plantariums, British flora, local flora, exotic, geographical, and geological. He recommended garden plans, soil and drainage, site preparation, and design principles. His comments showed a practical knowledge of landscaping, as well as an aesthetic and historical sense. He recommended the public funding of gardens for the benefit of all, not just for rulers and the wealthy.

The first publicly funded garden in England was designed by Joseph Paxton (1803 - 1865) at Birkenhead Park, Liverpool in 1843. Funding was provided through parliament, and through the sale of residential parcels surrounding the park. Park grounds were dedicated to the free use by its residents for recreation, nature, and health. Birkenhead paved the way for the public park movement in Britain and beyond. Frederick Law Olmsted was influenced by the writings of Loudon and the implementation of Birkenhead by Paxton. In 1858, he submitted his design for New York's Central Park in America, with architect Calvert Vaux. Public parks continue to be an important component of society.

Learn More:

• The History of Gardens, by Christopher Thacker
• The Story of Gardening, by Penelope Hobhouse
• The Gardener’s magazine and register of rural and domestic improvement, by J.C. Loudon

History of Gardens – Gardenesque

Another style that came out of the Landscape Movement was Gardenesque, which was popular from 1830 - 1930s. The Gardenesque style celebrates individual plants, and comes from the desire to plant plants for their own merits, rather than for garden design. The style gained popularity because of all the plants pouring into England from all over the world, the increasing knowledge about propagation, and the availability of large scale green houses in which to raise exotic plants.

Gardenesque: flowers, trees, and shrubs (The Gardener's Magazine, 1938)

John Claudius Loudon (1783 - 1845) was a proponent of Gardenesque, and wrote in 1840 that "the aim of the Gardenesque is to add to the acknowledged charms of the [picturesque], all those which the sciences of gardening and botany, in their present advanced state, are capable of producing". Gardenesque often displays plants in the picturesque setting.

Gardenesque: specimen trees (The Gardener's Magazine, 1938)

In 1866, architect and writer John Arthur Hughes described Gardenesque as being "distinguished by the trees and shrubs, whether in masses or groups, being planted and thinned in such a manner as to never touch each other; so that viewed near, each tree or shrub would be seen distinctly while from a distance they show a high degree of beauty...Grace rather than grandeur is its characteristic." The garden becomes a collection of individual specimens rather than composed. Many of the trees and shrubs coming out of the Americas were perfect candidates for this garden style.

Learn More:

• The History of Gardens, by Christopher Thacker
• The Story of Gardening, by Penelope Hobhouse
• The Gardener’s magazine and register of rural and domestic improvement, by J.C. Loudon

History of Gardens – Picturesque

A couple of years ago we explored the Landscape Movement, which was introduced in England and lasted over a hundred years (roughly 1720 – 1810s). The gardens were meant to be indistinguishable from nature, and even to improve on natrue. Landscape characteristics included sweeping house-to-borrowed views, serpentine lines, trees and plants silhouetted against the sky, and the use of eye catchers. Capability Brown was one of its chief promoters and implementers (see Garden History – Landscape Movement, and Elements of the Landscape Movement).

Around 1800, garden design took a turn from the beautiful and the sublime. Critics argued that it was impossible to tell what was designed by man, and what was pure countryside. They felt that that true landscape gardening must show the hand of man. A new movement emerged—Picturesque—in which the garden or landscape was not just wild, but was further refined to emulate a picture that an artist might create. Humphry Repton (1752 – 1818) became the successor to Brown, and champion of the Picturesque.

Red Book: Repton's redesign of a village (see Alchetron)

In 1788, Repton started his gardening career, with little practical horticulture experience, but lots of good ideas. Where he lacked practical gardening experience, he excelled at presentation and salesmanship. For each garden design, he created a Red Book (referring to its binding) that contained a description of the proposal, and watercolor paintings showing the before and after look of the design. This approach helped educate and persuade his clients.

Red Book: Repton's redesign of the estate view from the house (see Alchetron)
Notice the tab in the upper picture that is used to peel away the "before" picture to reveal the "after".

Repton followed many of Brown’s basic design principles, but he started to prettify the areas around the house. Where Brown brought the lawn right up to the house, Repton brought in terraces, balustrades, shrubs, and flower beds around the house. He used long winding roads to make the property seem larger and access to the house more dramatic. He reintroduced the fountain, and used trellises and greenhouses. He designed picturesque themes, such as Chinese, American, arboretum, and forcing gardens. He modified many of Brown’s original landscape gardens with these new ideas, and created new landscapes in the Picturesque style.

Learn More:

• The History of Gardens, by Christopher Thacker
• The Story of Gardening, by Penelope Hobhouse
• Humphry Repton, by Alchetron Free Encyclopedia (watch the videos!)

Garden History – Innovation of Gardening Publications

Our final garden landscape innovation in this series is the spread of gardening publications in the 1800s. Technical advances brought down the cost of printing and producing color illustrations, leading to an explosion of journals, periodicals, and books. Changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution had led to an emerging urban and educated middle class, with an interest in gardening on a smaller scale. They eagerly sought out the new gardening publications.

Two prolific publishers of the time were Joseph Paxton (we learned about him in Garden History Innovations – Glass Houses), and John Claudius Loudon (1783 – 1845). Loudon was born to a farming family in Scotland, and became an influential horticulturist. He visited many of the great gardens of England and Europe, and understood their historical context. He also built glass houses, helped develop the Victorian suburban garden, and was an advocate for large public parks for recreation and nature. (Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed New York’s Central Park and the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, was influenced by his ideas).

Loudon wrote prolifically about old and new plant species, and how to grow them successfully using innovative techniques. His audience included those with grand estate gardens as well as small suburban gardens. Loudon’s publications include (dates vary by various sources):

• Encyclopedia of Gardening (1822)
• The Green-House Companion (1824)
• Gardener’s Magazine (founded in 1826)
• Arboretum et Fruiticetum Britannicum (1830)
• Remarks on Laying Out Public Gardens and Promenades (1835)
• Suburban Gardener, and Villa Companion (1838)

Gardening publication by John C. Loudon (No copyright, distributed by Google)

In 1830 Loudon met and married Jane C. Webb Loudon (1807 – 1858), who was already a published author of an early work of science fiction (The Mummy!). She worked closely with Loudon, and soon became a prolific garden writer in her own right. After Loudon’s death Ms. Loudon had continued success publishing books for women gardeners. Ms. Loudon’s publications include (dates vary by various sources):

• Young Ladies Book of Botany (1838)
• Gardening for Ladies (1840)
• Botany for Ladies (1842)
• The Ladies Magazine of Gardening (1842)
• The Ladies Companion to the Flower Garden (1840 – 44, four volumes)
• My Own Garden (1855)
• Amateur Gardener’s Calendar

Gardening publication by Jane Loudon (Creative Commons)

Many other gardening journals, periodicals, and books were available in the 1800s, but the Loudon’s had a major impact. They educated and influenced gardeners across gender and socio-economic lines via their many garden publications.

Learn More:

• The Green-House Companion (John Loudon)
• The Ladies Companion to the Flower Garden (Jane Loudon)

Garden History – Innovation of Lawn Mowers

The lawn mower is another important innovation that changed the face of landscape gardening. Prior to the 1800s, lawns were kept trimmed using skillfully wielded scythes, or grazing animals. This made lawns affordable only for the very wealthy.

In 1830, Edwin Beard Budding (1796 – 1846) filed a patent for the modern lawn mower. He worked as an engineer in a textile mill in Stroud, Gloucester, and was inspired by a machine used to trim the nap off cloth used for uniforms. He thought the same idea could be used to cut grass.

Budding lawn mower (picture from Alchetron)

The early machine was all cast iron, with a large rear roller with a cutting cylinder in front. Cast iron gear wheels transmitted power from the rear roller to the cutting cylinder. According to stories, people thought he was a lunatic for his idea, so he had to test his machine at night.

Budding went into partnership with local engineer, John Ferrebee, and they manufactured mowers in a factory at Stroud. They modified the design to enable a second person or animal to pull the heavy mower. They also allowed other companies to build copies of their mowers under license. When the early patents expired in the 1850s, the other companies introduced their own lines of machines.

An early cylinder (reel) mower. Public domain.

In 1888, the side wheel mower was introduced in England. The cast iron wheels on either side drove the cutting cylinder directly via ratchets inside the castings. This design was very light to operate, and inexpensive to manufacture. The side wheel mower became popular all over the world, including the United States. In the 1890s, motorized mowers appeared with lightweight gas powered motors, as did some small steam powered models.

Here in the Western United States, we are revisiting our love affair with the lawn, but it is interesting to see how the innovation of the lawn mower made lawns more accessible to everyone, and introduced a rise in grass-based sports such as tennis, golf, cricket, soccer, and football.

Learn More:

• The Old Lawn Mowers Club (see the video "Working Steam Mower Spotted" for nerdy fun)
• British Lawn Mower Museum (Victorian and Edwardian eras)

Garden History – Innovation of Glass Houses

Time for more gardening history! Last time we learned about the Landscape Movement that originated in Europe in the eighteenth century, and flourished in Great Britain (see Garden History – Landscape Movement). Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the Industrial Revolution ushered in significant technological and social change in Britain. In this series, we’ll explore some of the technical innovations that changed the face of landscape gardening. As always, I refer to The Story of Gardening (Penelope Hobhouse), and The History of Gardens (Christopher Thacker).

Glass Houses

Glass houses (also called green houses, stove houses, orangeries, and so forth) are structures with roof and walls made of a transparent material in which plants live in a regulated climate. Orangeries were used in the sixteenth century to house citrus trees grown in pots, which could be moved outside during the warm season, and inside during the cold months. Orangeries evolved into glass houses for tender plants and trees brought back by explorers from around the world. They were frequently built on grand estates, or universities. Regulating light and heat was a common problem.

In 1826, Joseph Paxton (1803 – 1865) became the head gardener at Chatsworth in Derbyshire, England at age 23. He was interested in glass houses, and began experimenting with the idea of “forcing frames” to create large spaces without supporting walls, and using a “ridge and furrow” roof design to support plates of glass set at angles. Using these design principles, he built a glass house from 1836 – 1840 to house a giant water lily brought back from the Amazon. The lily leaf structure of radiating ribs connected with flexible cross-ribs also inspired him. Through his projects with iron, glass, and wood, Paxton became a recognized authority on constructing glass houses.

Crystal Palace at Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851 (from Dickinson's ''Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851"). Public domain.

In 1845 the glass tax was abolished in Great Britain (the 300% tax had been introduced in 1746 by King George II to retire wartime debt). In 1848 the cast plate glass method was developed making it possible to produce large sheets of cheap but strong glass.

Ridge and furrow roof design (engraving by George Measom, 1818-1901). Public domain.

Paxton designed the Crystal Palace at Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851. His design was based on the largest size of glass sheet available at the time (10” by 49”); the new concept of prefabricated glass and wrought iron frames assembled on site; and the ridge and furrow roof design. The work crew assembled the building (848 feet long x 408 feet wide x 108 feet high) in eight months, for a fairly low price. The Crystal Palace was moved to Sydenham in 1854, and destroyed by fire in 1936.

Crystal Palace interior (unknown, scan from a book by Royal Horticultural Society, Lindley Library). Public domain.

Although the Crystal Palace was used as an exhibition hall instead of a conservatory, its innovations were implemented in many grand conservatories, functional nurseries, and domestic greenhouses to follow.

Stourhead

According to Penelope Hobhouse, writing in The Story of Gardening, the landscape garden’s grassy meadows, serpentine lakes, gently contoured hills, and artfully arranged clumps of trees seem the very model of Englishness, and almost “indistinguishable from the ‘real’ countryside.” Indeed, the great English landscape gardens and parks that remain today—such as Stowe, Stourhead, and many others—do resemble natural countryside.

Stourhead in Wiltshire, England is a prime example of an eighteenth century garden inspired by landscape paintings. Henry Hoare I (1705 - 85) designed the landscape and worked on it from 1745 to 73. He was inspired by landscape paintings, and by Vergil’s epic poem Aeneid (Book III), which tells of the journey of Aeneas, Rome’s founder. Hoare created a lake, and developed a peripheral walk in which “incidents” are revealed from the poem. As one walks around the lake, views of nature and eye catchers appear across the lake, invoking scenes from the poem.

Stourhead Bridge with the Pantheon in the distance (Photo by Lechona)

The eye catchers are both classical and gothic—a temple, a grotto, a pantheon, a bridge, an abbey, and so forth. The surrounding landscape includes a dense wood of dark conifers from northwest America, and a collection of rhododendrons and laurels. Christopher Thacker observes in The History of Gardens, that the design remains little changed, except for the addition of ornamental and exotic trees and shrubs in the nineteenth century. A visitor to Stourhead today sees a mature landscape that resembles natural country side.

Elements of the Landscape Movement

During the landscape movement, the highly manicured, formal gardens of the Renaissance softened into more naturalistic gardens. This was an evolutionary process, that occurred over the course of one hundred years, yet several basic design elements emerged.

Temple of Ancient Virtue at Stowe Landscape Gardens in Buckingham, England (photo by mym)

Penelope Hobhouse (The Story of Gardening) and Christopher Thacker (The History of Gardens) identify these basic design elements:

• House-to-borrowed view – the garden flowed seamlessly and uninterrupted from the house to the distant landscape. Landscapers went to great lengths to create these living pictures, sometimes moving whole villages, creating lakes, or excavating hillsides.
• The Ha-ha – a sunken wall and ditch created a kind of inverted fence, for keeping grazing animals and wild creatures out of the garden, but in the landscape picture. This enabled the area around the house, the park, and the distant country side to become one sweeping vista.
• Serpentine lines – the rigid lines of the Renaissance and formal gardens softened. Serpentine lakes and curving streams replaced geometric fountains and ponds. Contoured land masses and natural looking valleys that emulated nature became the ideal.
• Trees and plants – forests and copse of trees silhouetted against the sky replaced the topiary of the formal garden. Shrubs, meadows and lawns replaced flower gardens and flower beds. The shrubs and trees coming from the Americas were sought after and integrated into the landscape.
• The Eye Catcher – architectural or natural objects that created a focal point were integrated into the landscape. Temples, obelisks, bridges, pagodas, grottos, and ruins were used, often marking stages in a circuit walk. As the viewer followed a winding path or road, these eye catchers were revealed. Sometimes the objects told a story, like the political commentary of Stowe gardens in Buckingham; or represented a classical ideal, like the Stourhead gardens in Wiltshire, England.

The Grotto at Painshill Park in Surrey, England (photo by Amandajm)

 

These elements worked together to form a landscape that appeared as though it was simply part of nature. The landscapes were replicas of the ideal, and often indistinguishable from nature itself.

Garden History – Landscape Movement

Back to Europe for more garden history (recall when last in Europe, we studied Renaissance and formal gardens of the seventeenth century, both on the continent and in England). Fast forward to the eighteenth century, and to the emergence of the landscape movement. For sources, I’m using The History of Gardens, by Christopher Thacker, and The Story of Gardening, by Penelope Hobhouse.

Gardeners in England adopted some elements of the Renaissance and formal gardens, but they resisted full scale adoption. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, authors began to question the tightly clipped and manicured formal gardens, and to rediscover classical Roman ideas, which emphasized nature and retreat to bucolic country life. They were intrigued by the writings of Father Matteo Ripa (1682 – 1746), who described the gardens he observed during his 13 years in China; and were inspired by paintings of the Italian countryside by artists such as Nicolas Poussin (1594 – 1665) and Claude Lorraine (1600 – 1682).

In 1719, the English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) wrote to a friend “when laying out a garden, one should consider the genius of the place”; and in a poem described “all gardening is landscape painting…just like a landscape hung up”. They were also entranced with plant discoveries that were pouring in from the Americas, and from all over the world.

Pastoral Landscape, by Claude Lorrain (1648)

From these influences, a new garden style emerged. The landscape movement did not take hold at once, it was influenced by several generations of gardeners, each improving on the work of predecessors. Hobhouse identifies three main phases:

• Phase 1 (1720 - 1740s): Charles Bridgeman and William Kent (influenced by Pope), mixed formal and informal styles, provided views to the country side, and incorporated temples, pavilions and various buildings in the garden design.
• Phase 2 (1750 – 1780s): Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and his followers created landscapes that emulated nature. The green garden flowed uninterrupted from the house to the distant landscape. The garden was often indistinguishable from nature (nature was “edited” to achieve this).
• Phase 3 (1780 – 1810s): critics of the tame garden parks called for a wilder, more naturalist approach. They designed landscapes that incorporated beauty (elements that are smooth, regular, delicate, and harmonious), and the sublime (elements that also move us aesthetically, but are rough, gloomy, violent, and gigantic, such a volcanoes, storms, cataracts, and primitive beauty). As Hobhouse  describes “genuine romantic wildness typified by asymmetry, distant moors or mountains, rushing torrents, and crumbling ruins”.

Under these influences, the English landscape garden became indistinguishable from the real country side.

The Story of Gardening

The Story of Gardening by Penelope Hobhouse is one of my new resources for learning about garden history. It is published by Dorling Kindersley, Limited. (DK), London (2002). Hobhouse approaches the subject of gardens as a gardener, plants man, and story teller. She is a garden designer, lecturer, and writer from Britain.

The book provides an excellent introduction to the topic, and includes a wonderful time-line showing world events and gardening events for the Americas, Europe, the Far East, and the Near East and India, from 3000 BC to 2000 AD. Chapters cover all the major gardening periods, from origins, to classical gardens, to Asian, Persian, and European gardens; as well as modern movements of the last two hundred years. The book is lavish with beautiful photography, charts, graphics, and side bars with interesting details. Several of Hobhouse’s own garden designs are included (she has a special interest in Persian-inspired gardens). The bibliography is rich with references that would provide a reading list for a lifetime.

I was especially pleased to see the chapter on “plants on the move” (a personal interest of mine), and a chapter on gardens of the Americas. The chapter on gardens of tomorrow, with its emphasis on ecology, is also very relevant and timely. I first learned about Penelope Hobhouse when I attended her presentation at the San Francisco Garden Show a few of years back. She gave an excellent slide show on plants in the landscape, including the red hot poker, which had recently turned her head. I thoroughly recommend The Story of Gardening (and feel it makes a great companion to my old favorite, The History of Gardens, by Christopher Thacker).

Renaissance Gardens in England

In England, the reaction to the Renaissance style of landscaping was a little different. There was great interest in the new style and its concepts, but there wasn’t the rush to replace existing gardens as elsewhere in Europe. Perhaps, as Penelope Hobhouse  (The Story of Gardens) points out, the practical English mind resisted all that pruning and maintenance!

Elements of Renaissance gardens were adopted, such as terraces, statuary, fountains, grottoes, and waterways. But these elements were used to summon the Italian idea, not replace the existing Tudor and Jacobean gardens. Italian ideas were integrated with the traditional medieval style, which continued on in England, with its heraldic symbols, viewing mounts, fountains, beds of scented flowers, and knot gardens. A few Renaissance and Baroque gardens were developed, adapted to the English climate and terrain, such as the renovation of Wilton House in 1631. Many of these gardens were destroyed during the English Civil War (1642 – 1651).

The formal French garden was introduced into Britain with the renovation of Hampton Court in 1689. The Renaissance influence is evident, but without the grand scale or sense of conquering nature. 



Hampton Court Palace - sunken garden with medieval and Renaissance influences.
Photo by Michal "Cronwood" Babilas.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

 Christopher Thacker (The History of Gardens) observes that in Britain during this time, a few independent minded gardeners on small estates were developing ideas that would change things in gardening. In future posts, we’ll learn more about the important Landscape Movement.

Renaissance Gardens in France

In France, the countryside was flatter and more densely wooded than in Italy. Extensive hardwood forests were interrupted periodically with small villages and farms. Both Christopher Thacker (The History of Gardens) and Penelope Hobhouse (The Story of Gardens) observe that France had a hostile relationship with nature. Nature was feared, rather than enjoyed. (In retrospect, there are quite a few Fairy Tales with a foreboding forest involved; I wonder how many of them are of French origin!)



Chateau de Villandry - the parterres form intricate patterns, best viewed from above.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Attribution Share Alike license
(author, Jean-Christophe BENOIST)

France embraced the Renaissance style of landscaping, and developed its own distinctive style as early as 1600. The French style sought to overcome and subdue nature, rather than exist in harmony with it. Landscaping was done on a huge scale. Often whole landscapes were brought in subjection – forests were cleared, or wide swaths were cut through the trees to form an axis from the garden to the horizon line. Trees and bushes were clipped and pruned into fantastical and architectural shapes of all sizes.

Palace of Versailles - the orangery and a series of parterres, best viewed from above.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Attribution Share Alike license
(author, Mbcmf217)
 

A main focus of the formal French garden was the parterre – typically a series of low hedges and flowers formed into complex symmetrical patterns and designs. These patterns were called parterre de broderi, and resembled the rich embroidery used in French brocades. Parterres were designed to be viewed from above, typically from a particular place in the main house to the dictates of the owner. The garden was not just for beauty and pleasure, but to demonstrate the power of man over nature. Only those with great wealth, such as kings and nobleman, could maintain this style of gardening.