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At our last meeting we welcomed back Twigs Way, who has given several excellent talks to the Club in the past. This time Twigs reminded us of the important role of women in gardening over the years and how it has taken centuries for women to be recognised for not just carrying out the menial jobs but being acknowledged as \u2018experts\u2019 in horticulture.<\/p>\n
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Twigs began by showing picture after picture of women gardening in mediaeval gardens, always doing the menial jobs like weeding – in fact at Hampton Court Gardens maids were often taught to identify groundsel, bindweed, dandelions etc. so that they could weed the garden after finishing their household duties. The famous Book of Hours shows women with a wheelbarrow and in 1475 in France women could earn money by working in gardens- they were hired on a daily basis to do the \u2018fiddly\u2019 jobs but received half the pay of men!\u00a0 At York Place men received 6 old pence a day but women were only given three old pence for their labours!<\/p>\n
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In Tudor times male authors such as Thomas Tussel in 1550 wrote instructions for the right times for the housewife to set seeds, cover strawberries with straw etc. However, women began to assert themselves, swopping seeds with neighbours, even running small market gardens – but only \u2018under the radar\u2019.\u00a0 Elizabeth 1 was a garden enthusiast but did not like paying staff their due – whether men or women.\u00a0 Royalty began to be more interested, and Queen Mary (1662-1694) created the Dutch Garden at Hampton Court. The Dutch East India Company brought plants – orange trees and tulips\u2026.\u00a0 Photos of the time seldom included female gardeners and when they were shown, the difference in dress between the courtiers and the female gardeners could not be overstated.<\/p>\n
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Most Victorian and Edwardian pictures and photos of gardeners showed only men! However, Princess Augusta (1719 -72), married to the Prince of Wales, was responsible for the first collection at Kew. She created a 9-acre botanic garden which unfortunately is now a coffee house!\u00a0 However, some of her trees remain – look for the \u201cLion Trees\u201d when you next visit Kew!\u00a0 As an aside, with the help of Lord Bute she also introduced buildings from around the world such as a pagoda and a mosque.<\/p>\n
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Thankfully opinion began to change and Queen Charlotte in 1744 ensured that her daughters began to learn about botany. Moving on swiftly to the Victorian age, it is refreshing to read that Victoria and Albert believed that their children should have their own gardens at Osborne, they duly raised plants, especially vegetables which they sold to the kitchen.\u00a0 There was even a book written by Jane London entitled \u201cGardening for Ladies.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It wasn\u2019t until the early twentieth century that Gertrude Jekyll in 1911 called herself a garden designer and writer even though she had been \u201cliving on her own means\u201d since 1901! Thankfully we have come a long way from \u201cmedieval weeders paid in ale and herrings, Victorian ladies gardening in corsets and ambitious royal creators of botanic gardens.!\u201d. Twigs showed the way in which for centuries women were forced into the margins of the traditional overview of garden history. Time and space do not permit me to describe the influence of 20th century wars, the need for women to be trained, the establishment of horticultural colleges for ladies e.g. at Reading and Kew, even the eventual acknowledgement that sensible clothes were essential for female gardeners!\u00a0<\/p>\n
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For now, let\u2019s just appreciate the large numbers of women gardeners now working across the whole horticultural scene.<\/p>\n
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Mary Duff<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 At our last meeting we welcomed back Twigs Way, who has given several excellent talks to the Club in the past. This time Twigs reminded us of the important role of women in gardening over the years and how … Continue reading