|
 The
native floras of some countries are persistently undervalued by
gardeners, even by the gardeners of the country concerned. We in
Europe, all rush to grow the latest import from Northern India,
China, Japan or Nepal, whether the plants are a part of the
ancient garden culture (like chrysanthemums or day lilies), or
newly collected from some remote valley. Few seem similarly to
value American plants. Yet that vast and exciting flora embraces
everything from wonderful coniferous trees to the rare mariposa
lilies of Colorado, or the strange Sarracenias of the western
States. It is even more surprising in view of the immense impact
that the North American flora has made on European gardens, not
only in terms of plants, but also in terms of garden design and
garden image.
 Odder
still is that the dismissal, by many European gardeners, of the
plants and planting possibilities that have come from America has
spread to America itself; any historically minded European
gardener, looking at the American contribution to gardening, must
be more than mystified by the widespread present-day American
admiration of European plants, designers and planters, sometimes
to the exclusion of their own. Of course, early American
immigrants from Europe were equally Euro-centric; the new
Americans were busy bringing out flowers to remind them of home -
and naturally planting gardens in the old European styles, both
to remind them of 'home', and also to express the values of the
societies they had left. But the feeling of the 'superiority of
elsewhere' seems to have hung on, so that many American gardeners
and garden writers often think that European gardens are somehow
'special', and don't realise the enormous debt that Europe owes
to America, and how old this debt is.
It is not
merely that the plants from Persia, China and India are more
recently arrived, and so more exciting. Though there certainly
were huge numbers of arrivals from these countries in the early
decades of this century, plants from there had been arriving in
western Europe from the time of the Roman expansion eastward,
though the trickle only became a flood by the sixteenth century -
very much the same sort of date that American wild and cultivated
plants began to influence European gardens for the first time.
Though
flowers like the Near Eastern hyacinths and tulips became
important 'florists' flowers, it is the American flora that has
most influenced European gardens, whether of the development of
the late-summer gardens of the early eighteenth century, or, in
the nineteenth, the 'English' herbaceous border, which was
effectively based entirely on hybrid flowers developed from
American species. Even by the early seventeenth century, many
eager European gardeners passionately collected seeds and bulbs
sent home from the newly settled American states. While it was,
of course, natural that drugs like tobacco were swiftly adopted,
and large numbers of food crops achieved early European
penetration (though some of the beans were hardly in the kitchen
before 1900, and in Northern Europe even tomatoes and aubergines
were treated with suspicion until the same period), American
flowers were hardly laggards.
Some did
arrive somewhat disguised. There were a number of early attempts
at the commercial exploitation of the American native flora,
though ones which often ended up more for decoration than for
industry. So though the early 18th century export of seed of the
Virginian strawberry eventually gave rise to grand hybrid fruit
comparable to modern sorts, the export of seed of the hardy blue
lobelia (the still grown Lobelia syphilitica), as a supposed cure
for the disease, ended up with the plant in the flower garden,
not the medicine chest. The same fate awaited the various
American iris species also used against syphilis.
The
American strawberry was also called the 'Scarlet strawberry', a
colour not much represented by the existing seventeenth century
garden flora. Hence, there was a big trade in the seeds of
Lobelia cardinalis, which had to be sent over every season as it
refused to set seed in British gardens. The great gardener of the
period, Philip Miller, thought the flowers the best red he'd ever
seen. Other flower varieties regularly exported were various
species of Coreopsis (from New-England, Maryland and Virginia,
and a rare one from Carolina sent annually by a Mr Catesby),
sassafras berries (British gardeners had difficulty growing the
shrubs - too cold in winter, too dry in summer), and monardas
from both Canada and Virginian (as tea, they didn't catch on, but
were soon in every flower border).
 One
way of showing the early importance of the American flora is to
take a 'snapshot' in time; here in our Scottish garden, we have
planted a parterre of 1700. This was more or less fifty years
before the big wave of shrub and tree introductions that gave
rise to the phenomenon of the 'American garden' which survive
today in some numbers. A parterre of our chosen date contained
mostly herbaceous genera, bulbs, a few annuals and biennials, and
the tender plants used in pots to line walks, paths, and to
decorate doorways. Though most examples will have contained
plants derived from the old European and Middle Eastern garden
flora, it would, we discovered, have been remarkably easy to
plant one up using entirely American species popular in Europe by
that date.
The daisy
family alone would furnish flowers for much of summer and autumn,
starting with the erigerons, or, for later summer, some of the
rudbeckias, coreopsis, and many more. American Composites were a
revelation for European gardeners. Many of them flower in late
summer and autumn, long after all European and most eastern
flowers had long finished. Gardeners anxiously sought them out;
not only the genera just mentioned, but also a flower with long
and reflexed purple petals, probably an Echinacea (they're still
much admired today), and all the new wonders amongst the asters.
This was
a particularly rich genus; amongst their vast numbers, there were
especially early introductions like Aster tradescantii and A.
turbinellus (both now enjoying a come-back in modern florists
windows). All the natural variants of Michaelmas daisies were
rapidly taken up; Aster novae-angliae was introduced to Britain
by 1710, with purple and pink variants soon popular, and A.
novae-belgae was in by much the same date. All the early
eighteenth century forms were 'single', for the still popular
'doubles' did not appear until late in the century.
And if
their blues, purples and soft whites began to pall, the gardener
could add the hot yellows of the woundworts (species of
Solidago). The first of these to arrive came from New York, but
they were later found all over the settled states, especially
Pennsylvania. As they filled September with their golden yellow,
they were immediately much admired. Sharper yellows and some
bronzes could be found amongst the helianthuses. The perennial
sorts were widely popular in British towns where they would grow
in spite of the thick smoke of winter and industry. In large
gardens, they were also used in 'bosquets', amongst the other
large plants, and in big borders surrounding the parterre.
But of
the other herbaceous American genera, there were endless lovely
things. Amongst the aquilegias (only the European Aquilegia
vulgaris, though in many forms, was common in the sixteenth and
early seventeenth century), handsome things like the spring
flowering A. canadensis, or the gorgeously fiery A. formosa, were
grown, and the fine blue and cream A. caerulea soon added its
genes to the strains of aquilegia available.
For the
gardener looking for something exotic, there was the luscious
Phytolacca, the American nightshade, from Virginia, New England
and Maryland, whose fleshy roots were used as a purge (it needed
a spoonful of the juice), and whose black-purple berries were
used as a dye for paper (one which soon faded, for no-one knew
how to fix it). It was another plant for big gardens as, well
grown, it could often reach six feet high. It's medicinal use was
soon found too violent for humans, and it became called 'Porke
Physic', being more suitable for pigs.
Silvery
blues and soft perfumes were found amongst some of the first
Lupinus species. Though the genus was known in Europe, the only
European sort had been the ancient annual crop plant. Of the
multitude of American species, only a small creeping one from
Virginia became popular in smaller gardens. It took another
century or so before western American species began to arrive,
eventually giving rise to the grand hybrids that filled Victorian
gardens. A few species of Phlox, all from Virginia or Carolina,
were found to do well in British gardens. They were much admired
and widely grown. Gardeners could choose a creeping sort with
flowers in sky blue (probably the charming P. divaricata), and
several tall herbaceous ones in shades of purple (probably P.
paniculatus). These were also found to grow well in big pots, and
were then used to 'adorn Courtyards and Halls'; something worth
trying today.
But the
list goes on an on: the brilliant scarlet of Chelone barbata, the
softer tones of the first few penstemons (though grown by
'curious persons' only), the sharp pinkish purples of Physostegia
virginiana, the vastly popular spider flower (species of
Tradescantia), which though grown on the European mainland since
the late sixteenth century, only came to Britain in the mid
seventeenth century. By 1700, various colour forms, including
pink and red flowered sorts, were commonly given a shady border
all to themselves. Shade helped the flowers last for longer.
For
smaller plantings amongst the box beds, enthusiastic gardeners of
1700 grew the single, wild form of the gorgeous white puccoon
(Sanguinaria canadensis), to be found all over N. America. While
the single flowered form was much admired, the rare and beautiful
double was in cultivation by 1720. Native Americans had used the
juice of the roots of the wild species as body paint, though it
seems never to have become a cosmetic in Europe. Amongst its
smoky grey-green leaves could have been twined three species of
Virginian violas, all of which were to play an important part in
the hybridisation of the 1820's, when their progeny, the violas
and pansies, began their meteoric rise to fame.
One early
eighteenth century planting scheme suggests planting Sanguinaria
and violets amongst Sisyrinchium (an American genus), and tiny
bulbs like Dog's Tooth violets, Cyclamen species, Persian irises,
and Narcissus bulbocodium. Though the bulbs in that planting were
all European or Near Eastern, amongst the many bulbs contributed
by North America, the lilies were perhaps the most sought after,
especially things like the 'Canada' martagon, later found all
over Virginia, the handsome crinums, 'lately from America' in
1710 (so we've cheated a bit), and which was first an admired
stove plant, though soon found to be reasonably hardy.
But a
bulb planting could also boast the 'Meadia' or 'American
cowslip', members of the genus Dodecatheon, grown in Europe since
the end of the 17th century, though swiftly lost, and then
'lately reintroduced' by Peter Collinson, who got seeds from
Bartram when the latter was travelling beyond the Appalachians.
By 1700, variants were still rare but gradually getting into
gardens, and thrilling gardeners used only to the European dog's
tooth violets. All could look pretty amongst American Smilax and
Smilacina (already appearing by 1640). In the pots decorating the
garden could be grown all the colours of Mirabilis jalapa (common
since the early years of the seventeenth century, though then
thought of as a convolvulus), pots of climbing ipomoeas, the
endless colourful sorts of amaranthus, including the wonderful
love-lies-bleeding which was grown even in the most modest
gardens, grand daturas like D. stramonium, or some of the first
American verbenas from Carolina (a genus that was later to be the
mainstay of Victorian half-hardy bedding gardens), or the species
of Solanum from Virginia that were then, as now, called 'winter
cherries', the brilliant peacock blue of Commelina coelestis,
tropaeolums, yuccas and the fabulous agaves. And the sarracenias?
They seemed to survive the boat journey to Europe, being amongst
the first plants to be exported with balls of earth still around
the roots. Philip Miller received several shipments of them.
Alas, even he didn't really know how to grow them, and they soon
died. And with them, European gardeners are still struggling.
END
If you've
enjoyed the read, and would like to support the site, please
click through to some of the advertisers. Many thanks!
Copyright
david stuart 2004
Back
|