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A History of Gardening, 1800-1960 (Hardback)

Transforming Gardens Across Two Centuries

Hobbies & Lifestyle > Gardening P&S History > By Century > 19th Century P&S History > By Century > 20th Century

By Angela Youngman
Imprint: Pen & Sword History
Pages: 248
Illustrations: 30 mono illustrations
ISBN: 9781399080897
Published: 31st August 2025

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Between 1800 and 1960, gardening underwent a massive transformation, changing almost beyond recognition. It was a period when the concept of gardening as a leisure activity emerged, along with a vast array of changes in garden styles, plant breeding, the arrival of horticultural societies and shows, brands such as Suttons Seeds, and mass market tourism to garden sites. New retail styles even emerged with the advent of garden centres and containerised plants. Entrepreneurs took advantage of new technology to create products such as lawnmowers, the Wardian case terrarium and the strawberry canopy. Plant specialists searched out exotic plants from far-flung corners of the earth, risking their lives to bring back unusual specimens. Women took up gardening creating careers in a sector that had previously regarded them as little more than capable of doing light weeding or arranging flowers. New standards were established for training, products, plants and seed quality, resulting in the arrival of seeds such as Tom Thumb lettuce and frilly edged sweet peas that are still grown today.

As recognition grew of the need for a green environment, green spaces and public parks accessible to all, gardening styles underwent considerable changes. This resulted in the creation of designs that have become extremely familiar such as carpet bedding so beloved of municipal gardens, rockeries, vegetable rotation, shrubberies, walled gardens, cottage gardens, roof and window gardens. It was a period which even saw garden gnomes taking up residence in gardens large and small.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Really loved reading about the history of the gardeners, and I kept thinking how much I wish I could share all of it with my grandma. She had a huge garden when I was growing up, and while she would not have read the book (not the best reader), she would have loved hearing all about it... Definitely would recommend this and will be looking for more books from her in the future.

NetGalley, Rebecca Stewart

This was a very lovely read.

This was a topic that I did not know much about, although I enjoy gardens and mini gardening, I feel like I learned a lot.

In this book, Angela Youngman talks about many things related to gardening during this era from gardeners, to personal gardens, public gardens and even shows and tourism. My favorite chapter to read was the third chapter,,“The Rise of Female Gardeners”. We may associate gardening a lot with both genders and flower gardening even more with women but as we can see from this chapter, the women actually started to play a role later on which is during this time period. Without giving much spoilers, there are many interesting instances in this book, some are still related to women, that may surprise the reader which I think made the book very enjoyable.

One thing I also enjoyed were the literary and other type of media references. I believe this also helps to form a connection with the general audience as well. Youngman also mentioned many newspapers and especially gardening journals which peaked my attention.

There are also pictures, although black and white, at the end of the book which were nice to look at.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone, especially if they have at least a bit of interest in gardening. However, even without the gardening element, there is still much to learn from this book for its time period.

NetGalley, Melisa Aras

About Angela Youngman

Angela Youngman is a professional journalist and author living in Norfolk. Her other books include The Dark Side of Alice in WonderlandNorfolk: A Dog Walkers GuideKiddiwalks Norfolk, and Green Roofs. She is a member of the International Travel Writers Alliance and Garden Media Guild, writing for a wide range of travel, tourism, transport, culture magazines and websites. Angela enjoys finding the unexpected and unusual stories relating to destinations such as London.

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