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Victorian gardens were not just about the extraordinary developments of the various styles of bedding or of the garden's flowers. The appearance of Victorian gardens was just as much determined by a whole set of new, or at least further developed, garden elements. Some of these were to provide places to grow some of the new plants being introduced from the furthest corners of the earth, or for some of the myriad new sorts of flower being bred by the nurserymen of Europe, America and the Orient. Some new elements were designed for new classes of gardener, whether simple rustic pergolas or summerhouses (so much cheaper, and so much more 'honest', to build out of fallen timbers from the woodland, than of finely cut ashlar designed by the architect) for simple middle class families, or grand conservatories for the very grandest of people and plants. They varied from the 'Arborets' of Mr Hudspith of Haltwhistle, who was exhibiting and selling 'very tasteful' stands for pot ferns, made from 'skillfully altered' knotted tree trunks at the Great Exhibition of 1851, or real arboretums containing the very latest trees from North America or China, to the myriad newly built rock gardens in which to grow alpines from all over the world. Then there were rosariums, heatheries, and even 'American' gardens. Some of these elements naturally had earlier antecedents. Arboretums, for instance, had existed in one form or another at least since the seventeenth century. They'd become commoner in the following century, especially once new and spectacular species began to be introduced from North America towards the end of the eighteenth century. When the trickle became a flood, the possession of an arboretum became a necessity for those with sufficient land to hold one. The study of botany had become popular all over Europe in the late eighteenth century, and a rage, especially for idle ladies, a few decades later. Having a collection of trees available for instant study was obviously more status-full that having to find weeds from the hedge bottom, or a few flowers from the garden. Some of the grandest arboretums were very handsome indeed; many survive in the grounds of the larger country houses, and quite magnificent examples can now be seen at Scone, Killerton, Westonbirt and elsewhere. By 1839, a writer in Paxton's Magazine of Botany was thinking that 'An arboretum, vaguely considered, is merely a collection of indigenous or exotic trees, disposed according to the taste of the proprietor... In modern arboretums, every genus or tribe of plants is grouped together, more or less densely in estates of considerable circuit, or in botanical or other public gardens; such departments create a variation, and sometimes a pleasing one. They also furnish the beholder, at one gaze, with a knowledge of the hardy ligneous species of every genus, tribe or order of plants, and their position in the natural system of botany... the practice of attempting to arrange plants... according to their natural affinity... is radically erroneous. It creates both a dull monotony... [and] paradoxical as this may appear, it is not the less CORRECT'. If the lady of the house couldn't have an arboretum, whether correctly planted, or just good to look at, everyone with a garden could have a rockery; they weren't just a feature of grand gardens like those in Chapter 1. Rockeries were beginning to become popular at the very end of the eighteenth century, and were closely related to the grottos of the earlier part of that century, whether as places to excite the senses (the sense, that is, of Gothic horror and awe if the grotto was got up to look like a ruined castle or a rock-strewn and haunted cave, or the sense of classical serenity if the grotto had a statue of a water god or a half-naked spring nymph). The entrances to grottoes of all sorts were commonly planted up, often with saxifrages and alyssums. 'Ruined castles' were made to look venerable by draping them with ivy. For some gardeners, the planting became more interesting and less childish than the associations, and the resulting piece of builder work to support the plants was called 'rockwork'. It became home for various mountain plants, mostly those of Europe. Such rockwork became more and more popular in Regency gardens, and soon became a necessity in even the tiniest urban ones. Standards were soon heavily debased. That process had started by 1838. Paxton's Magazine of Botany suggested some pretty little rockworks thus: 'the turf on which the pedestals stand is to be inclined at an angle of 45', and the pedestals [for vases] are enclosed in small circular borders, on which may be placed fragments of rock, or shells, and by the introduction of a little soil amongst them, alpine plants may be successfully grown' The design is both elaborate and geometrical, consisting of a large rectangle of ground with a guilloche pattern band of planting outside, with grass pyramids in the corners to hold statuary (there's rockwork at the base of these too). Inside all this is an inner parterre, with more beds around four subsidiary fountains (with rockwork margins), and then a pergola over central feature. The whole thing is surrounded by shrubbery. 'The introduction of fountains, of chaste and unique structure, and ornamented with every variety of rock and shell, into the central compartments, with jets of water issuing from every crevice, and propelled with diverse and ever-varying degrees of force, would form most delightful and refreshing spectacles during the summer months' Perhaps. However, many gardeners had already gone beyond the idea of merely using 'fragments of rock or shells', and J C Loudon complained that most suburban rockeries were often just a pile of stones around the roots of a tree, or, worse, consisted of a pile of stone, broken bricks, glass debris or old tree roots. He correctly pointed out that to get the construction of such things to look good is exceptionally difficult. Failing inspiration on the part of the owner or gardener, resort could be had to a professional rockery builder, like a certain Mr Gray, who did the Colosseum grotto at Regents Park, as well as a rockery at Clumber, and many in London. Oddly, elsewhere in the book, Loudon (or more likely one of his contributors), suggests that beds in the front garden could well be decorated with 'historic or antique stones' [so easy to come by], shells, ammonites, or lumps of spar. It's difficult to know how rockeries sank so fast, for soon they included even broken cups and saucers, like a medieval midden. Mrs Loudon, writing two years later, confides 'Rockwork, though composed of somewhat ponderous materials, is very frequently arranged according to female taste... there are many kinds of rock-work; but they may all be desirable as collections of fragments of rocks, stones, flints, vitrified bricks, scoriae, and similar materials, so arranged as to afford a striking object in the landscape; and, at the same time, so as to form a number of little nests or crevices for the reception of alpine plants' She described several examples of rockwork: the most natural-looking being that at Redleaf, near Tunbridge Wells (an illustration of 1850 shows it was really only a small pile of very large stones). She thought the most unnatural she had seen (which, even by the standards of the time, must really have been quite odd), was that in the Duke of Marlborough's private garden at Blenheim - formed on a scar of natural rock, but hewn into zig-zag paths - with numerous niches on each side to receive plants. It was covered with fragments of spar for a rich and sparkling effect. Syon rockery we have already met. Likewise Hoole, but that really was unsurpassed, even having 'fragments of dark stone to absorb the heat, round those that require most warmth, and fragments of white stone to reflect the heat, round those that require to be kept cool'. The plants were grown in clearly marked and individual 'cells', usually delimited by four flat stones (an odd-looking way of planting that remained common until late in the century). Hoole remained fashionable at least until 1850. The estate was, at base, a rather grand ferme orne of twenty to thirty acres, with lawns around the house, and an extensive kitchen garden. The rockery 'being one of the most remarkable specimens of the kind in England', was vast. Yet, in spite of its scale, and the fact that 'it has been the work of many years to complete', it had problems. The worst of these was 'the difficulty being to make it stand against the weather... ' This suggests that it was only made from painted plaster - which wasn't unusual. Although many early writers, like Jane Loudon, suggested that to make naturalistic rockeries, stones should be piled 'one upon another so as to imitate the stratification of a rocky outcrop', the advice was rarely followed. Whatever the difficulties, and however improbable most of the results, by 1841 such good picturesque advice persisted; '... rockeries have been make principal features in flower gardens; sometimes by accident, that is, when rocks happen to be about on the spot, but more frequently by design ... [which ] after all... can hardly be called good taste. Rock work, whenever it is intended to be formed, should always be constructed with ONE KIND of stone; not, as usually seen, made up of petrifactions of building bricks from kilns... altogether a rubbish-like assemblage, and as a work of art, quite contemptible. But when stone is used, and laid in horizontal strata, as it probably lay in its native bed, it has an artistical look, and the interstices answer well for the reception of plants' Structural honesty was not always possible or followed. In the 'Book of the Garden' of 1853, artifice was suggested, so that rockeries could be made of 'stones, the fused masses of brick procured from brick kilns, of indeed, any coarse material most convenient to be got. These are built up in the most rugged and mis-shapen forms imaginable and afterwards covered over with Roman cement, and formed into recesses, projections, and overhanging crags, according to the taste of the artist. Sufficient apertures are left for receiving soil, in which rock plants are planted. When the whole is perfectly dry and set, it is painted with oil paint to represent veined or stratified granite, or any other kind of natural rockwork that may be desired' The rockery, therefore, became an extension of the interior decorator's art, for when the woodwork and walls of the house were finished being turned into travertine or bird's eye maple, the rockery could be similarly treated. Ironically, the author entirely approves, continuing grandly 'Here is no unnatural mixture of shells, fossils, petrifications, architectural remains, and natural masses of stone huddled together, as if it were the omnium-gatherum of the vestiges of creation'. However, he did
confess to admiring Paxton's rockwork at Chatsworth most of all,
which was one of the grandest, most natural and most expensive ever
built. Of course, any rockery large enough to inspire any truly
alpine excitement was beyond the means of most middle class
gardeners. In small gardens, rockeries could only proclaim artifice,
never the Sublime. They became inextricably mixed up with the
picturesque 'rustic' ideal, which admired trellis-work, plant stands,
fences of wirework, together with vases, rustic cascades, and moss
houses. There, together with the rosary, the rockery and the
heathery, and just beyond the lawns by the drawing room, were crammed
all the new garden elements of Victorian Britain. There, according to
Shirley Hibberd's splendid work called 'Rustic Adornments for Homes
of Taste'; 'A circular pond of five feet diameter, may be
surrounded with a border of rockwork of twelve or fourteen inches,
the dark stones being merely loosely laid on an even surface, with no
pyramids or ruggedness of surface, and beyond this a ring of turf two
feet wide... The rock-work should be wholly formed of dark stones of
small size... and the edge next to the pond sloping down towards it.
Around this a light fence of wire-work should be placed, and on the
turf about eight or ten standard roses should be planted, so as to
form a ring. The stones should be planted with one or two junipers...
and the pond furnished with a fountain and gold fish'. Although
he later avers that 'Men of taste generally eschew rock-work in a
garden; and well they may, considering how, in too many instances,
taste is violated by the introduction of oyster pyramids, plaster
busts with delapidated noses, conch shells, mineralogical specimens,
and even broken crockery, under the general denomination of
rock-work...' he thinks that, properly treated, every garden
should have one - especially all urban gardens. ================================================================================================= =========================================================================================== |
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