The Victorian Gardener

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Other people whose primary profession was not gardening have made notable contributions to horticulture by planning or commissioning significant gardens. When the Second World War started he served briefly in France, but was discharged on medical grounds. He was appointed general garden foreman at Leigh Park in Hampshire. The large house had been commandeered by the Admiralty and Dodson's task was to grow enough food for several hundred people every day.

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Presenter Peter Thoday, now age 81, recalls memories of Harry Dodson, Ruth Mott and making the series (video) Try including different types of pelargoniums in your garden, which you can propagate from each year. Use them in pots along a garden wall, or as a garden table centrepiece, for instance,' recommends Rosie.Plant this look: Display potted tropicals, such as parlor palm, a Victorian favorite, in containers around your patio or indoors. Or, plant ferns outdoors in shady areas of the garden. If you wanted to be a gardener, like Matthew Balls, you had to commit to an apprenticeship of up to 15 years. Only the best and most committed uneducated boys were taken on, learning from older gardeners. Matthew probably would have started off as a gardener’s boy at a large establishment, aged 12-14. His jobs would have included washing flowerpots (huge numbers were required for carpet bedding), sweeping paths, and carrying coal for boilers heating glasshouses, which would need constant stoking. Gardening boys worked ten hour days, six days a week, while studying the latest horticultural publications in the evening. They would pay the Head Gardener for their training, and he would issue fines for rule-breakers.

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The period known as the Mid-Victorian era (1850-1870) has been called Britain’s “Golden Years” by historians, as increased industrialization led to a growth in the national income. There was peace abroad and at home. One of the earlier serious histories of Victorian garden and landscape design, focusing on influential figures including John Loudon, Shirley Hibbert, and William Robinson, and major trends including the use of exotics, the “wild” garden, bedding out, and European influences. Advances in the way plants were transported and transplanted meant that botanists were able to raise specimens imported from all over the world. From the 1830s plant diversity was also increased by experiments in creating hybrids. The most significant of all laboratory gardens was Down House in Kent, where Charles Darwin investigated such subjects as the action of earthworms on soil, and how orchids are adapted for fertilisation.The Douglas fir, Monterey pine and mighty redwoods from the Americas were particular favourites among municipal gardeners because of their rapid growth and almost instant character and colour. They remain popular today. Still from the 1987 TV series The Victorian Kitchen Garden, in which the walled garden at the Chilton estate in Berkshire was restored and worked as it had been a hundred years before. Photograph: BBC

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The underlying theme of the Victorian garden, as in much of Victorian life in general, was man's conquest over the elements. Nothing exemplifies this so much as the lawn. Thanks to the efforts of the seed companies and nurseries, the lawn became one of the most noted features of the American landscape, appearing in cities and towns from Maine to California. The series began in the largely derelict walled garden at Chilton Lodge, and followed Dodson and his assistant, Alison, as they recreated the working kitchen garden.William Shenstone, 18th-century English practitioner of landscape gardening through development of his estate Statues – at least one statue. Mostly Greek gods. Many were females and not dressed fully due to the times. Orchids – symbolised royalty, symbolised wealth. Was a famous flower of Queen Elizabeth. Was used in both homes and gardens