American Gardening

William Robinson (1838-1935)  became an important influence in English garden history during the second half of the nineteenth century. He preferred the English naturalistic style, and fought with those who encouraged a formal and symmetrical look to the landscape. His intolerance for the ‘landscape architect’ guided much of his writing.  He thought plantsmen and horticulturists [...]

After six years, my book America’s Romance with the English Garden (Ohio University Press) is now officially published. Today is what the book industry calls the ‘pub date’. My friend, publicist Lissa Warren in her book The Savvy Author’s Guide to Book Publicity says, “The pub date is the date your book makes its entry into the [...]

The alternanthera is grown for its leaves. It was a popular plant in beds during the nineteenth century both in England and in America. In the 1880 issue of Philadelphia seedsman Thomas Meehan’s Gardener’s Monthly M. Digram wrote an article called “The Alternanthera as a Lawn Plant.”  He said, “A carpet-like effect may be producted with the [...]

A common theme in the marketing of the garden from the nineteenth century seed and nursery industries is that gardening in Europe, but particularly in England, surpassed  American gardening. New York seedsman Peter Henderson (1822-1890) often wrote about that difference. Henderson admitted that American garden ingenuity outpaced that of England in some areas. He once [...]

In the 1890s advertising took off in a new direction. No longer did the company simply provide information about a product or service in an ad. Ads appeared everywhere, including the streetcar. The goal of course was to persuade the viewer to buy a product or service. Nineteenth century Philadelphia seedsman W. Atlee Burpee believed [...]

One of the research activities I enjoy is scouring library archives for their treasures. Recently I spent an afternoon in the Special Collections at Harvard’s Loeb Design School.  There I came across the book The Gardens of England (1857) by artist E. Adveno Brooke. The book was filled with page-length drawings of prominent English gardens from [...]

Advertising in nineteenth century America moved from simply product information to creating icons for the culture. At least that’s want Mary Cross writes in her book A Century of American Icons. Products became recognizable as brands, linked to a visual symbol that eventually became an American icon. For example, the Quaker Oats figure sold oatmeal, [...]

I write at times about advertising and its relationship to the culture. Today is one of those days. Advertising changed at the end of the nineteenth century into something more than simply information about a product. Frank Munsey (1854-1925)  sold his Munsey’s Magazine subscribers to advertisers. In  September of 1893 he wrote: ” Beginning with the [...]

Gardening resembles clothing as a cultural symbol.  It represents what is in fashion at the moment. In nineteenth century England plant collecting made varieties of plants from Africa, Asia, and the Americas available to gardeners who had never seen them before. People gardened to show off their collections. The garden moved from the eighteenth century picturesque [...]

In the spring time one of my favorite public gardens to visit is Blithewold in Bristol, Rhode Island. In the bosquet area, near the house,  thousands of spring bulbs will bloom for the next several weeks. American gardeners owe the encouragement of  such naturalizing of spring bulbs to the popular Irish plantsman and writer William [...]