A short book proposing that hardy plants from the temperate regions of the world be naturalised in woods, meadows and on banks, where they will grow without further care, in place of the annual bedding of the Victorian garden.
William Robinson (1838–1935) came from Ireland to London as a gardener at the Royal Botanic Society’s garden in Regent’s Park, and became a journalist: he founded the weekly The Garden in 1871 and wrote The English Flower Garden (1883), which went through fifteen editions in his lifetime. From 1884 he made his own garden at Gravetye Manor in Sussex, and he lived there until his death at the age of ninety-six.
By the wild garden Robinson meant something exact: placing perfectly hardy exotic plants where they will flourish without further attention. He did not mean a garden left to run wild, nor a garden of native plants only. Bulbs in grass, climbers through old trees, and plants of the Caucasus, North America and the Alps naturalised on banks and by streams would give a garden that changed through the year and cost little. The book attacks bedding out, topiary and the architect’s formal garden, a quarrel Robinson continued against Reginald Blomfield in the 1890s. The edition of 1881 has wood engravings after Alfred Parsons.
The book, part by part
I The wild garden explained
What is meant by the wild garden; its advantages over bedding; examples from Robinson’s own experience.
Rules: The wild garden
II Plants for the wild garden
Lists of hardy plants by situation: woods, shrubberies, banks, walls, streams and bog.