Village Gardeners
DR TWIGGS WAY, an archaeologist turned garden historian, gave us a truly
fascinating talk this month on the history of women in the garden entitled
Virgins, Weeders and Queens (she is soon to publish a book under this title).
Eve, of course, started it, and the catastrophe that ensued, Dr Way felt, was
the reason that women for centuries were practically banned from orchards!
In early medieval times, “ladies” sat in their walled gardens protected from the men: quiet, demure, virginal — chatting and contemplating as women do. In both Christian and Islamic countries, women were employed as weeders and are depicted as such in pictures.
In the 16th century, famous male apothecaries employed women to collect plants and herbs. It was never noted who these women were for fear of their being accused of witchcraft.
Elizabeth I loved gardens — not the quiet courtyard type — but having very little money, asked all her courtiers to design and make gardens in her honour. The symbolism of flowers and gardens was very important at court, and many Lords of the Manor completely re-landscaped their acres to please the queen when she visited.
In the 17th century, the first gardening book for ladies appeared and by the early 18th century ladies with fortunes, such as Mary, Duchess of Beaufort, were collecting plants and often making wonderful botanical drawings of them. Kew Gardens in its early years grew from the amalgamation of the Royal Estates of Richmond and Kew. Several queens during this period were fanatical about garden design and helped form the development of the site. In the mid 19th century, “Gardening for Ladies” was written by Jane Loudon — “It must be confessed that digging appears at first sight a very laborious employment and one peculiarly unfitted to small and delicately formed hands and feet; but by a little attention to the principles of mechanics and the laws of motion, the labour may be much simplified and rendered comparatively easy”.
By the early 20th century, gardening was slowly becoming of interest to the newly emerging middle class with their suburban gardens. At last women started to be trained as gardeners — both privately, and by the R.H.S. at Kew, suitably attired of course!
London Kewriosity
They gathered in bloomers, the newspaper said,
So to Kew without warning, all Londoners sped,
From the roofs of the buses they had a fine to view,
Of the ladies in bloomers who gardened at Kew
The orchids were slighted, the lilies were scorned,
The dahlias flouted till botanists mourned
But the Londoners shouted “What ho, there go to;
Who wants to see blooms when you’ve bloomers at Kew!”
[Fun Magazine, 1900]
“The only way to learn is to do the actual work” said Beatrix Havergal in 1939 — and women certainly had to during the war years when men were away.
Dr Way ended her talk by briefly mentioning the two women whose influence on gardens and gardening was incomparable: Gertrude Jekyl and Rita Sackville- West, who in 1958 assured a gentleman reader who thought her an “armchair” gardener that “for the last 40 years of my life, I have broken my back, my finger nails and sometimes my heart in the practical pursuit of my favourite occupation”.
Many thanks to Ron Prime for his role as the evening projectionist.