The Victorian Gardener: The Growth of Gardening And the Floral World

by Wilkinson, Anne

• ISBN13: 9780750940436
• ISBN10: 0750940433
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-30
• Publisher: Sutton Pub Ltd

Summary

Gardening is a popular leisure activity today: suitable plants and equipment are easily available, as is plenty of information. It was not always so. Before the 1860s middle-class garden owners had to learn the skills needed by trial and error. This book recreates for us the world of the Victorian gardener - not the doyenne at the head of the large estates but the amateur and small time gardener in towns and villages. Through persistence and dogged determination they turned the horticultural world upside down. In this fascinating, richly illustrated new book Anne Wilkinson draws on the vast wealth of contemporary gardening magazines and other sources to give us an extraordinary insight into the Victorian gardener.

Table of Contents

The gardeners	p. 1
'The home of taste' : how gardening enhanced domestic life	p. 3
'Every man his own gardener'	p. 16
Learning to garden	p. 31
The quest for information	p. 33
Nurserymen, seedsmen and florists	p. 53
The hardware of the garden	p. 66
Societies, shows and competitions	p. 89
Creating the garden	p. 103
The front garden	p. 105
The pleasure garden	p. 112
The vegetable garden	p. 122
The fruit garden	p. 136
The flower garden	p. 145
The natural garden	p. 159
The rose garden	p. 172
The water garden	p. 183
The exotic garden	p. 189
The indoor garden	p. 198
Epilogue : what the Victorian gardeners did for us	p. 209
Victorian gardening magazines	p. 211
Suppliers and places to visit	p. 215
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.