Garden History for Historical Readers and Writers

For those of us in northern climes, February is a season of snow and ice and cold.  A season when gardeners start looking in flower catalogues and dreaming of spring and summer. Hence, it’s a perfect time to invite Renaissance Woman Margaret Evans Porter to talk about English historical gardens.  Margaret, the floor is yours!  (Chorus of trumpets!) 

MEP: In ancient days, the beauty of gardens was appreciated as much as their utility, which is why illuminated manuscripts often feature flowers.  In medieval monasteries and convents, the faithful cultivated crops for the table, herbs for healing and flavouring food and making medicines.  They raised hops for ale, grapes for wine-making.  Even roses had their purpose, as is obvious from the name given an old gallica—the Apothecary Rose.

Secular folk grew food, too, but they created the pleasaunce, where plants were grown purely to pleasure the senses rather than the palate, on walls and trellises.  Gardens became associated with romance—troubadours fingered their lutes in flowery arbors.  Henry VIII courted most of his six wives in garden settings!

Extensive and well-landscaped grounds—like a fine house—signified a man’s influence in the world.  Monarchs and the nobility imported, at great expense, French and Dutch gardeners and landscapers.  Charles II brought Le Notre of France, famed for his work at Versailles, to re-arrange St. James’s Park, with formal avenues of trees and a canal.  Hothouses kept tender plants warm; orangeries supplied blooms and fruit in cold seasons.  After the tulip craze of the early 17th century, the auricula became all the rage.  They were grown in narrow clay pots—Long Toms—arranged tier upon tier, for decorative effect. (And are still, in UK flower shows!)

John Evelyn, a skilled gardener, was an early “garden tourist,” touring famous gardens and the nursery operations that supplied plants.  Like her uncle Charles II, Queen Mary II was especially interested in “exoticks”—Dutch and English explorers provided specimens from across the globe.  At Hampton Court her orangery for tropical plants was recently restored.  Her contemporary, the Duchess of Beaufort, was the greatest plant collector of that era.

At that time Dutch flower painters created lush canvases of “cabbage roses”—the many-petaled centifolia—to adorn fine houses.  Virtually all rose species and hybrids bloomed only in late May, June, July.  This gives the poetic line, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” a significance we overlook.  And colour selection was limited to white, pinks, reds, and vari-colored or striped varieties.  The ancient “Four Seasons Rose,” also known as the Autumn Damask, bloomed intermittently from May till about October—in England. (And, incidentally, from June till October in my own New Hampshire garden.)  It existed centuries before Christ, and in the Mediterranean probably did bloom year-round.  With the introduction of China roses into England in the latter 18th century, repeat bloomers could be grown or created.

The greatest rose lover of the Napoleonic era bore the name Rose, although she is more famous to us as Josephine Bonaparte.  French hybridists worked constantly to stock her extensive gardens at Malmaison.  During her husband’s protracted wars with Britain, despite blockades, the Empress of France could purchase cultivars from the English nurserymen! 

The formal 17th and early 18th century gardens were swept away late in the 18th century, when the artificially “natural” landscapes of Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton came to the fore.  Repton’s Red Books contained fold-out panels so his well-heeled clients could see “before” and “after” images.  (In my novel The Proposal, my rose-loving, garden-designing heroine is highly critical of Repton’s methods.)

Avenues of centuries-old trees were uprooted, replaced by “clumps.”  Formal canals and pools were replaced with meandering streams or ornamental lakes.  Entire villages were razed to open up an extensive vista, and new housing created at a distance. Certain imports—particularly rhododendrons and fuchsias—naturalized all over Britain.  To prevent errors, authors can check dates of introduction for plant species, as well as histories of cultivars.

For every action there is a re-action. The Victorians re-imposed artificiality and—typically—fussiness.  Repton the eradicator was himself eradicated, so nowadays his landscapes are few and far between.  The latter 19th century became the great era of carpet bedding to achieve a massed effect of similar or contrasting colours.  The hybridisation of roses, especially in France and Germany, ran rampant from the 1830’s onward.  Blossoms grew ever larger and the plants bloomed more and more abundantly.

In closing, I admit my preferences.  As my mother does, I tend to grow old plants—often hardier and more reliable than hybrids.  I grow many roses of the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries.  Their fragrance is unmatched, their soft, ruffled beauty, to my eye, is preferable to the rigidity of the modern florist-style hybrid tea rose.

Because old garden roses don’t re-bloom, I spend June and July frantically photographing and picking and sniffing.  Fortunately, the English hybridist David Austin has done an admirable job propagating “old look” re-blooming roses, which almost match the fragrance of the originals.  Eglantyne, pictured below, is a dead-ringer for a 17th century centifolia!

Just for the Wenches, I’ve created a site to share flowering plants and bloom times for the 17th-18th-19th centuries, with illustrations  from my own gardens.    www.margaretevansporter.com/gardeninfo.html

I also feature my personal collection of historic roses on my website.  www.margaretevansporter.com/roses.html

Many thanks to the Wenches for inviting me back to indulge in my love of flowers, at a time when my own are dormant and covered by several feet of snow!

MJP: And many thanks for visiting again, Margaret!  (If we’re really, really good, maybe someday she’ll return to tell us about French and Italian historical gardens. <g>)  Be sure to click on Margaret's links--the flowers are gorgeous!

  Anyone who leaves a comment between now and Thursday at midnight will be eligible to win the copy of Margaret’s Regency historical romance, The Proposal.  (And what a lovely, garden-y cover it is, too.)

Mary Jo, thinking flowery thoughts

Comments

[Sherrinda]

Great post! I loved the history shared. It makes me wonder what flowers and trends will be the ones making history someday!

I adore Regency reads and absolutely love the cover of The Proposal! I would love a chance wot win a copy.

Sherrinda

[Patty]

The old garden roses are gorgeous. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be able to wander through gardens like those with my husband. It is a particularly romantic thought this close to Valentine's Day!

[Maggie Robinson]

Your photgraphs are exquisite!I've bookmarked both pages---one for the information, one for the inspiration. Gardens and flowers are always part of my writing. Living in Maine, however, I won't be seeing any roses for a long time---nothing but snow and ice everywhere.

I had a wonderful rose garden in Connecticut, but ripped the cartilage in my knee digging those deep holes. My gardening days are confined now to an 8X8 perennial raised bed plus foundation plants around my front porch, which still give me enormous pleasure. No roses, though, and I miss them.You must do all sorts of things to keep your roses from being fussy. What are your secrets?

[margaret]

Sherrinda, that's a a wonderful observation! I wonder, too, about what garden history our generation will leave.

I should think, given our busy lives, that we live in an era of low- (or lower-) maintenance gardening. Also "green" gardening (I know, that sounds redundant!) By relying on native plants, one reduces the need for watering--they're accustomed to the local conditions--and composting instead of industrial fertilisers. (And composting is, after all, another word for recycling!)

Patty, I had the same thought this morning, about a gardening blogpost being appropriate so near Valentine's Day. My husband usually gives me a houseplant. I'm a fanatical indoor gardener as well! We have such long winters in NH and I need flowers to get me through.

Maggie, I sympathise on the knee injury. If you miss roses, you might try potting some up in medium or large pots or planters. I've had good luck doing that on my deck with varieties too tender to survive our winter. (The pots go into a spare room for the season, and back outside in spring.) Some of the smaller Austin roses and plenty of antique roses are excellent for pot culture. I'm just one state away from you...and in this winter of exceptionally heavy snowfall, I must remind myself that the roses absolutely love it! Snowpack insulates them from the cold, and supplies the water table. They always bloom so abundantly after winters like this one.

As for fussy roses or fussing over them...the sad fact is, I'm a lazy gardener, and one with limited time. Soon as the snow melts I'm fairly busy in the gardens, after that they're on their own except for occasional weeding.

These old roses I grow are hardy, they establish well, I haven't watered them for years, they don't require pruning unless I want to (it's an every-other-year event, typically, to keep them in shape.) I don't spray them with anything, because I live in a lake-and-woodland habitat a fresh body of spring-fed water to protect, and lots of wildlife and birds.

When the evil Japanese beetles show up--as they inevitably do--sometime in July--the older roses are mostly finished blooming anyway, so they can't do too much damage. By then I'm mosting living at our lake cottage. (Which has no garden, only some windowboxes of marigolds and geraniums!)

Perhaps I should add that my first cousin became a landscape designer--nothing to do with me, but a point of pride. She creates large installations like national parks. Her current commission: the White House! (Probably her first one to require a background check!)

I'm so thrilled to be back with the Wenches, I believe for my 3rd time.!

[Jane O]

How lovely to read about gardens on a gloomy winter day. This is the time of year I always get far too ambitious for what I will actually be able to do come July.

It's a particular pleasure to read about old roses, which I love too. I've never been able to understand the objection to having roses that only bloom in June. It seems to make them more precious, not less.

And I love the cover of your book.

[Gretchen F]

Not only are there pitfalls for the historical author with old versus new flower varieties, but there are lots of fruits and vegetables that are relatively recent creations. Granny Smith apples, so popular and common in the produce aisle, are a newcomer(from Australia, I think) and would not be available to the Regency cook. Also, I think in the Regency raspberries were only available in the red variety- does anybody know when the black raspberry was hybridized?
My sister grows some of the older roses, and my father mourned the way Transparent apples had replaced Lodi, which he said were superior in flavor for applesauce.

[margaret]

Jane, the roses on the book cover are "mine." I provided my cover artist with photographs of rosa mundi and some centifolia and damask roses in my garden. He actually incorporated them in the painting, which I purchased from him.

Gretchen, the black raspberry, rubrus occidentalis, is native in some parts of the world, including the Eastern coast of the US, from whence so many plants were introcuced to England. Yes, I can confirm that the black raspberry would have been available to people of the Regency.

Rubus occidentalis appears on Kensington plantsman Robert Furber's list, dated 1727, with a notation that it was introduced in 1696. It's identified as "rubus occidentalis, Bramble, the upright, of Virginia."

The plant lists of the 17th and 18th century are loaded with "Carolina" this and "Virginia" that.

[peggy Q]

The roses are gorgeous.

[Denise Lynn]

My my, I was so antsy to get out in the garden that I checked the roses and yarrows in the rain this morning. Now, it'll be worse. LOL. Even though it'll be a while yet, I can't wait until the rugosa alba blooms. Planted it intentionally by the back porch so the clove-like smell wafts into the house on warm, breezy nights. After 7 years, she's a good 6' by 6' and blooms over and over into the fall.

Your pics are gorgeous -- thanks tons for the post - even though it'll make spring fever burn brighter!!!

Denise Lynn

[Mary Jo Putney]

From MJP:

Yes, Margaret, this is your third visit to the Wenches. You've written about how travel informs your writing, about the historic theater, and now English gardens. You are ALWAYS welcome to come back!

Very cool that your own roses showed up in the cover for THE PROPOSAL. Smart art departments do this: Linnea Sinclair was delighted when Bantam used a picture of one of her cats, and I was tickled when Pino incorporated the image of Bactrian camels I'd sent with the exhortation, "Two humps, not one!"

Mary Jo

[margaret]

Good for Linnea's cat and your Bactrian camel! I never succeeded in getting a late great dog on the cover of a book in which said dog was prominently featured. After the cover conference I was informed that editorial was cool with it but the pres. of the division had veto power. The artist used some Manx scenery I'd photographed...I have that painting, too. It's gorgeous, but I think the inclusion of a black and white herding dog would have enhanced its appeal. At least for me!

Denise, I grow rugosa alba also, mine's not so big as yours. My Snowdon rose--a rugosa hybrid--is defnitely that large. It's also a beetle magnet. The little b*gg*rs love those white blossoms.

[LynneW]

Margaret, thanks for a very interesting post.

I have finally decided to take the plunge and plant a rose bush. I want one of the old-fashioned kind. Color is not as important as smell (although I must say I don't really care for yellow).

Can you recommend one for this newbie gardener? I live in NE Ohio and unfortunately don't have a place to keep them overwinter inside, so it will be close to the house where there's at least some shelter.

Thanks for any recommendations!
LynneW

[Minna]

Lovely pictures!

[margaret]

Lynne,
Well, that's a question I didn't expect! You're in luck, though, because so many of the old roses are extremely hardy.

Most often I do mail order from 2 Canadian rose suppliers, Pickering Nurseries and Hortico (more than just roses). If you visit their websites, you'll find a wealth of information, photos and descriptions of roses (mind-boggling!) and planting advice, on-line ordering and a catalogue request form.

http://www.pickeringnurseries.com/
http://www.hortico.com/

Each rose will have a recommendation for USDA hardiness zone, so it's easy to determine what can survive your weather. You are in the 5a or 5b zone (same as me.)

A caveat: these nurseries sell bare-root stock, to be planted in early spring. In all likelihood, you won't have blooms in the first year.

If you're impatient, try to find a local supplier selling old roses in containers--they will be mature enough to bloom the first year.

Just make sure the site you choose for planting your rose has good sunshine for most of the day. That's the most important requirement for successful old rose growing, even more than a sheltered spot. Sheltered is good, as long as it's not too shaded.

Picking out roses to grow is like choosing a book to purchase...a very personal decision, and based on many factors!

Good luck!

[Marie]

The roses on your website is beautiful! I'm moving to a new house soon and I can't wait to start on my new garden.

[Louis]

Love roses here also. Have several "olde" roses and a few David Austin roses. Total number about 50.

Gorgeous cover.

[Susan Scott]

Oh, Margaret, that link with the historically accurate flowers is divine! That's quite a gift to us here at the Wenches. I recently wrote a scene in Madame's garden behind the Palais-Royal, and I never could find sufficient convincing info about the exact plants and flowers that were there in her time -- everything was later. So I chickened out, and switched the scene to winter. Snow is always historically accurate! *g*

I'll add my thanks to Mary Jo's. You are a Super-Honorary-Word-Wench, of the highest order!

[Linda Banche]

Your roses are gorgeous. I love dark pink roses, and having a great scent makes them even better.

Question: What flowers were favorites in the Regency era? And what flowers would a smitten gentleman present to his lady fair?

I guess that's two questions.

[margaret]

Louis, your garden sounds lovely, I like your taste in roses! I stopped counting mine when the plants numbered 75...and I haven't stopped adding them.

Susan, I'm glad the plant list is useful. I look forward to reading the scene in the snow!

Lynda, to answer your second question first, a clever gentleman would give his lady the sort of flowers that she likes best! But perhaps he doesn't yet know...

Then, as now, being able to provide flowers out of season could impress, they would be more costly than plants in season and would be obtained from commercial hothouses or greenhouses.

Camellias arrived from China in 1792, and were popular (grown in conservatories).

Scented flowers would be desirable, I'd imagine. Jasmine, lily of the valley, hyacinths, stock, tuberose. Carnations, pinks, sweet williams.

Bouquets of cut flowers could be purchased at a nursery, at market stalls, or from street vendors.

In those days, the only greenery included with an arrangement would be the leaves of the flowers in the bouquet. They didn't use green fronds as "filler" or contrast the way modern florists do.

[Sherrie Holmes]

I adore roses, and one of my favorites is my "wild rose" that is incredibly fragrant. I can stand on my front porch in the summer and smell the roses growing up at the barn. Those boogers are hardy! They grow like weeds and take over. A friend told me they were called ruby rugosa. Their entire stem is covered with closely packed stickers, and aphids just love them. *g* Here in Washington State, they plant them alongside the freeway because they are so hardy.

Margaret your photos are exquisite. I love to visit your site to see all your excetional pictures. It's always such a treat to have you here for a visit!

[Sherrie Holmes]

Oh, and I forgot to mention my favorite rose story. I had paid a fortune for a mail order "blue" rose that produced one utterly perfect, truly blue rose each year. One day my nephew came to play with the goat, and as he was leading Thunder back to the barn, I admonished him sternly to keep a tight hold on the goat's leash or as he walked past that rose, because goats just love roses.

Well, sure enough, as they walked past that rose, Thunder chomped that perfect just-ready-to-open rose right off the stalk. And woe is me, he bit it off below the graft point, so no more blue rose. From that point on, all I ever got was one perfect PINK rose. *sigh*

[Diane Gaston]

Lovely post, Margaret. I could almost smell the roses!

I so appreciate the historical information, as well. I'm always frantically looking for a flower to include in my stories, one that wasn't introduced 50 year later!

[NinaP]

Great Post, Mary Jo!

Margaret, thank you for sharing your historical knowledge of flowers and gardens. Very timely for me and my current WIP. Thank you! Thank you!

I love the photo of the Passion Flower. A very unique bloom, indeed.

All the best with your new book.

Nina

[Kathy Kremer]

I'm not much of a gardener, probably have a brown, rather than green, thumb. One of my beefs with newer roses is that they may look beautiful but they have no scent. To me, the scent is more important.

[LadyDoc]

WOW- great post! Thanks!

I love growing plants but certainly not on this scale. But everything looks beautiful.

Check my blog for a note about this blog.

[margaret]

Sherrie, so sorry you lost out on your blue rose. I've seen them in catalogues but never in person. We kept goats growing up--but they were penned well away from my mother's rose gardens!

Because I now live surrounded by forest, I do but up mesh deer barrier aroung my once-blooming roses. I learnt the hard way how necessary it it when a deer visited the rose beds a few days before my gardens were featured in a garden tour. Luckily it was a year of abundant bloom, and the deer went unnoticed to anyone but me.

Diana, I'm glad the info was helpful.

Nina, I have a special love for passion flower...it also happens to be favourite of my mother's, so I was taught to appreciate it at a young age. (I like the flavour of passion fruit also, but that was a later development.) I've enjoyed studying the plants history, and the Duchess of Beaufort's effort to acquire them from explorers.

And thanks for the best wishes on the next book. It's set in the late 17th century, Queen Mary II is an important character, her gardens in Holland and at Hampton Court appear. My female protagonist--also a real person--had quite a splendid garden of her own, which unfortunately no longer exists although I continually return to the place where it used to be and mourn its loss. So while this is not a "garden story" per se, to a slight extent I'm involved with gardens and landscape as I was when writing two of my Regency-set novels.

Kathy, I know what you mean about newer roses having less scent--generally. But hybridists are, I think, focussing on increasing the scent, after practically obliterating it in favour of other qualities.

[Janae]

Gorgeous roses, Margaret! I adore old roses. I just bought an Aimee Vibert noisette to plant on the wall outside my kitchen window. I've yanked all but one hybrid tea rose that came with our house and have been replacing them with old roses. I wish I had a bigger budget, lol.

[willaful]

I lost my favorite yellow rose. :-( I'm hoping I can find another with that wonderful scent. My favorite memory of buying our house was going out into the yard for the first time and smelling the yellow rose (in February!)

[MarianneH]

Thank you for the wonderful post on roses. My dad had 50+ bushes in our yard (the modern kinds, I'm afraid), so I "grew up" with roses in a way. My current garden doesn't have enough sun for roses, although I have one of his plants left that somehow struggles through each year.

[Anne]

What a pleasure to read this on a chilly, overcast day! Thank you for sharing your passion with us. Your roses are beautiful.

[Linda Banche]

Thanks for the information on flowers. I've got this post bookmarked.

[margaret]

Thanks so much for all your interesting comments. I truly enjoyed my return visit to the Wenches, and thank them for the opportunity to share some information on a favourite topic.

I've got one more tidbit to offer.

You might hear/read people (writers, researchers) saying, "there were no yellow roses in the Regency"--or prior to that time. Or, "If you write/read about yellow roses, it's an author error."

Well, much as I dislike contradicting others, this is a false assumption. And I've got the evidence to disprove it.

It would be more accurate to say that yellow roses were a rarity. Most likely, they weren't even as yellow in colour as they are today, probably more muted and pale. But they did exist!

In the catalogues of Robert Furber of Kensington, 1724-30, he lists:

Yellow Austrian Rose

and

Double Yellow Rose

I'm not even partial to yellow roses, but here I am sticking up for them, and any author's right to feature one in a Georgian or Regency novel.

[Helen]

What beautiful roses Margaret they are my favoutite flowers and the pictures are beautiful.
Thank you for the great information.

Have Fun
Helen