GARDENS:The views of controversial 19th-century gardener William Robinson still resonate today
IN THE MIDDLE of the 19th century, the face of gardening changed completely on these islands. Strangely, one of the things that prompted this revamp was the removal of the glass tax in 1845, as this allowed vast greenhouses to be built on wealthy estates. The protected buildings were used to raise tender bedding plants by the thousand, which were then planted out in regimented blocks and bands of colour.
In the heyday of bedding, the amount of plants that a person displayed was a gauge of their wealth and status. According to the head gardener at the Rothschild estate at Halton in Buckinghamshire, it was 10,000 plants for a squire, 20,000 for a baronet, 30,000 for an earl and 40,000 for a duke.
Around this time, a lonely and cantankerous voice could be heard making a plea for a more sensible approach to gardening: a way that was more natural, more appropriate to the climate, less labour-intensive and less wasteful. In other words, this was a voice that was advocating what we now think of as modern concepts of sustainable and ecological planting. Yet, it was only 1870. The voice (or pen, rather) was that of the 32-year-old Irish-born William Robinson, who had arrived in England as a young gardener, and who had transformed himself into a prolific and opinionated writer. It was his fifth book, The Wild Gardenthat proffered the ideas that ran counter to the contemporary vogue for "beds filled with vast quantities of flowers, covering the ground frequently in a showy way, and not unfrequently in a repulsively gaudy manner".
Robinson didn't advise the sweeping away of bedding (he was canny enough not to antagonise his readers); rather, he suggested that the areas further away from the house could be cultivated in a more relaxed fashion. His proposed wild garden, he was at pains to explain, was "not a garden run wild": it was, instead, a way of "placing plants of other countries, as hardy as our hardiest wild flowers, in places where they will flourish without further care or cost". The species that he recommended were those that were resilient and unfussy, and that required no staking or tying in – exactly the same sorts of plants that are used in today's naturalistic perennial schemes. In his long and flowery introduction to The Wild Garden, he offers six reasons for adopting this way of planting, and all are either aesthetic or ecological – or a combination.
Much of his advice elsewhere in the book is still germane today: suit the planting to the existing soil and conditions, use perennial plants as groundcover under shrubs and trees, allow bulbs and wildflowers to naturalise in grass that is managed as meadow. Others of his suggestions will bring a shudder to our 21st-century biodiversity-aware selves. He eagerly advocates collecting plants from the wild and swapping with similarly-minded gardeners, exchanging, for example, “Orchids of the Surrey hills for the Alpines of the higher Scotch mountains”. He also refers to himself throwing seeds of plants out the window of the train, to beautify the margins of the railway. In Victorian times there was little consciousness, even among sophisticated gardeners, of conserving species or the landscape. Instead, collecting one and embellishing the other were considered worthy pastimes.
The Wild Garden, although written when he was still a young man, was probably Robinson's most influential book, and it ran to many editions over many decades. It garnered him admirers such as the plantswoman Gertrude Jekyll and the designer of New York's Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted.
The “Robinsonian” method of gardening can still be seen in Irish gardens, with extensive areas of naturalised bulbs and perennials. Some of the better-known examples are Mount Usher in Co Wicklow, Fernhill in Co Dublin, and Annes Grove in Co Cork.
This year, 140 years after it first came out, two new editions of Robinson's revolutionary book have been published, with notes and additions by contemporary horticultural writers. In the first, American landscape design consultant and writer Rick Darke elegantly connects Robinson's philosophy to current thinking on sustainable landscape-making. He uses the fifth edition of The Wild Gardenas the main text, together with the charming original engravings by Alfred Parsons. Darke's expansive, introductory chapters and his own handsome photographs of well-planted gardens in the US and Europe illustrate Robinsonian principles in a way that present-day gardeners will be able to understand and appreciate.
The second new edition of The Wild Gardenis a slightly more academic affair, and is the work of Charles Nelson, the former taxonomist at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin. He chooses Robinson's first edition as his text, and augments it with his own photographs, notes and an introductory essay.
William Robinson himself would be pleased, no doubt, that 75 years after his death, his Wild Gardenis still being propagated.
The Wild Gardenby William Robinson with new chapters and photography by Rick Darke (Timber Press, £20)
The Wild Gardenby William Robinson, a new illustrated edition with photographs and notes by Charles Nelson (Collins Press, €29.99)
