Between December 1849 and June 1850, Jane Webb Loudon (1807-58) was the editor of this weekly magazine published by Bradbury and Evans. "Assisted by the most eminent writers and artists", she wrote about fashion and arts, literature and poetry, geology and geography, travels, books, concerts and exhibitions. She answered her readers' letters, offered games for children, scientific cooking, schemes for embroideries, crochet works and hair bracelets, gardening tips and botany lessons.
When the garden in winter is "gloomy", she writes, winter gardens, or conservatories, allow people to walk among exotic trees, "and thus enjoy the beauty of good scenery when the ground beyond the glass is covered with snow."
A small winter garden could be an adjunct to a drawing-room or a library, or a passage between different parts of a house, see Fig.1, and is perfectly affordable. Decorated with statues, it is perfect for evergreens such as: "Camellias and Orange trees, ... creeping-plants such as Coboea scandens, Tacsonia, and some of the hardier kind of Passion flower...", plants that do not require artificial heating.
At page 96, she adds a further article about the real winter garden, that is "a garden of about an acre in extent, laid out with walks beds, fountains, and other usual appendages of pleasure-grounds and only different from an ordinary garden in having glass between it and open air." Fig.2 with real trees such as "Musa Cavendishii, and the Palm by Chamaerops humilis. Against the pillars may be trained Habrothamnus fasciculatus..."
She mentions addresses of suppliers for conservatories and "ornamental tallies." A brief history of winter gardens is proposed together with beautiful winter gardens in London and abroad from Russia to Berlin, but "none of these,... are equal to the one lately formed in the Champs-Élysées, in Paris."
N.V London: Saturday, January 26, 1850
Fig. 1 p. 61
Fig. 2 p. 96
British Library
