Victorian Garden

Tom Carter, The Victorian Garden. (Salem, NH: Salem House, 1985)

For lovers of Victoriana and keen garden-book browsers, The Victorian Garden is a feast. Not only does it include a wide variety of Victorian images-- depictions of gardens, seed catalog pictures, advertisements, and diagrams decorate each page, and are supplemented with extensive sidebars of text taken from Victorian-period publications. Carter addresses in turn the Kitchen Garden, garden Artifices, Glass use in gardening, Science in the Garden, the Pleasure Ground, Floramania, and the Garden Indoors. Extensive diagrams of 19th century inventions and their use, including such favorites as the cucumber glass and the Wardian case, and sidelights such as the introduction of Garden Gnomes, the history of the Crystal Palance, and the deplorable death of collector David Douglas in a bull-trap, liven a serious history. However, for the serious working gardener the book is less helpful; no plant lists or even simplified explanations of Victorian trends meet the spade-weary browser's eye. Nor are modern photographs or modern reconstructions included. However, it's a fascinating book, and a fit companion to Susan Campbell's Charleston Kedding : a history of kitchen gardening (London : Ebury Press, 1996) with which it should be paired on the shelf.

Another garden book review

Filippo Pizzoni, The Garden: A History in Landscape and Art. (NY: Rizzoli, 1999)

At first glance, this book seems similar to most of the more well-known treatises (Hobhouse, Plants in Garden History; Crisp, Medieval Gardens, Harvey, Mediaeval Gardens; Landsberg, Medieval Garden) but there is a crucial difference. The perspective here is that of a continental author, specificially an Italian, rather than an English gardener. As a result, the author concentrates much more on the Hispano-Arabic styles, and Italian Renaissance styles in gardening. Detailed descriptions of the garden layouts of the Alhambra, Generalife, and others are given. The growth and development of the Mannerist style in the 16th century in Italy, France and Germany is covered in more detail. Emphasis is mostly on the landscape/architectural style of gardening, so most attention is focused on the layouts and statuary of the gardens. The photographs are drool-worthy in most cases. The book covers from the 13th century onward, so only the first 80 or so pages cover the pre-1601 period of study. The author's envisioned layout of the garden described in Pietro de Crescenzi's De Ruralium Commodorum is a unique contribution. The photos of extant gardens and reproductions of illuminations are droolworthy and appear on every page.