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I've always had an interest in gardens and in the natural world. I soon realized that these were more than just flowers to me, but people, places, pictures, history, thoughts...
Starting from a detail seen during one of my visits, unexpected worlds come out, sometimes turned to the past, others to the future.

Travel in a Garden invites you to discover them.

Friday, January 5, 2018

Winter gardens by J.W.L.

The Ladies' Companion at Home and Abroad dated Saturday, January 26, 1850 included an article, dedicated to  Winter Gardens signed by J.W.L., page 61. 

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.


Quotations from:
The Ladies' Companion At Home and Abroad
N.V London: Saturday, January 26, 1850
Fig. 1 p. 61
Fig. 2 p. 96
British Library

3 comments:

  1. Do you know if Peter Smithers garden in vico morcote can still be visited?

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    1. Hi Kelly, In an article published by Hello Switzerland Spring 2013 I found that the garden is now owned by Mrs Sheila Winter and that she allows private visits (sheila@winteremail.co.uk).
      Hope I have been of some help and thank you for visiting my blog. Anna

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