I don’t want to rant this week or talk about some big issue. I think the world is rather too full of big issues at the moment, and that in trying to keep up with it all we end up losing a bit of ourselves.
I have no issue with the idea of being informed but there’s the square root of nothing I can do about things. I can’t stop wars or tell people to stop lashing out at each other, and I can’t fix the strengthening El Niño in the Pacific Ocean and stop it throwing weather and climate events out of kilter. My sphere of influence is minute and unlikely to grow any time soon.
All I can do is make plants grow
If I become boss of the world at some point then I will mandate more gardening and more reading time for all, but I’m not. Instead I’ve come to the realisation that the only commitment I can make is to live my life the best way that I can and try my best to make a positive impact if I get the opportunity.
Projects
I think the world would be better if more people had hobbies and personal projects. Having an activity that is personal to you can be liberating; it allows time away from others without being overtly unsociable, gives you something to focus on that both matters but can also be put to one side, and encourages us all to be confident in our own company.
This week I would like to share with you a little project I’ve started and tell you why it makes me happy. I’m creating an index of all my old gardening magazines.
When I say old I mean back as far as 1842, then right up to the mid 1970s.
A bound volume of The Gardeners’ Chronicle for 1842 on my desk
Some of these have their own indexes but the problem with an index is that it won’t find you the little specific nuggets of interest that you only find by turning the page and reading.
I’ve been working on some early journals from the Royal Horticultural Society, creating index cards for subjects that I’m confident that I might want to come back to. As projects go I anticipate this taking the next 30 years, but as I have little else to occupy my free time I don’t see this being a problem.
The Gardeners’ Chronicle
My favourite magazines are my editions of The Gardeners’ Chronicle. This once prestigious weekly magazine began life in 1841 and ran until 1985. It had a few title changes as it evolved through the years, and I would argue that it still exists today as the trade journal Horticulture Week.
That would mean that it has existed in one form or another for 185 years. Pretty impressive for a gardening magazine. By 1851 the weekly circulation of The Gardeners’ Chronicle was given to be 6,500, higher than many of the prestigious newspapers of the day.
I have no idea if Horticulture Week is still printed or whether it’s all moved online. I know that a great many nursery offices used to have unread copies piling up, and indeed in a previous employment it was my job to periodically skim through the pile looking for interesting articles. I seldom found any of particular interest to my employers.
The Horticultural Society Of London would later become the Royal Horticultural Society
However I find the early magazines fascinating. They’re a snapshot into the world of gardeners like me who lived and worked long ago; the old 19th century gardens I visit were at their peak when many of the magazines on my shelves were being read for the very first time.
The articles are interesting because there’s a real sense that everyone was out there actively experimenting and learning about gardening. The top-down stream of information and guidance doesn’t seem to have been quite so all-pervasive in those days, although I’m fully aware that I’m reading the words of a small number of gardeners who actually contributed.
Going Back In Time
The advertisement and letters pages are as fascinating as the articles. Nurseries that are long gone – many buried under expanding towns and cities – selling plants that were new and exciting at the time but have now largely been lost to history.
The 1842 edition is pretty hard going because the text is tiny (I’ve had to buy a magnifying glass!) and is seldom broken up by pictures, but as I read it’s as though the voices of the past are coming back to life through the words.
Compared to modern magazines these are quite intense!
I’ve found arguments between people of differing views and occasionally sarcastic replies to letters asking for advice, and occasionally the name of a gardener who I know went on to be recognised later in their career. Just a few days ago I found the account of an apprentice gardener who joined a prestigious estate to find that the gardeners were being housed in an old wooden hut; quite a tough experience for a boy who might only have been 12 years of age at the time. In those days apprentices were sent away from their families at an age we would now regard as that of a child, and were forbidden from having any contact with their families. In many cases they were treated fairly well, but in some their lives were miserable.
It’s a museum now but this building was once a permanent home for young and unmarried gardeners
In many ways I’m struck by how little gardening has changed over so many years. At its core gardening is about keeping plants alive, but how we go about it seems infinitely variable. Yet seasons follow each other with regularity and the basic idea of the garden hasn’t changed since ancient times. There’s comfort in the familiarity of it all, and also a little disappointment that some bits haven’t changed when they really should have.
Looking Backwards And Forwards
Modern gardening is changing. It’s staying within the fundamental core of what a garden means – a human-centred ornamental or productive space – but ideas are shifting again, as they have done many times before.
I’m a firm believer that to make good decisions about the future we must also understand the past. Gardening has come a long way since The Gardeners’ Chronicle was first published; some of that progress has been good and some of it hasn’t. However it’s good to know where we’ve come from to know where we’re going.
In 1842 North and South America were the focus for plant hunting; later that would shift to China.
As gardens chase the goal of sustainability we could do worse than to remember that much of what we do now has been done when times were different. A vast change in gardening was the loss of large numbers of gardeners; now a single gardener or small team looks after gardens that had tens of gardeners just a century ago. Technology has brought about change but socio-economic changes have also pushed developments in technology.
Tucked away in old gardening books and magazines are low-tech ways to, for example, propagate all sorts of plants. I wonder whether familiarity with how things were done before could encourage new techniques blending old ideas with modern technologies? That could be very helpful in a time when gardeners are being expected to achieve more with fewer resources.
For now I’ve realised that my own little project isn’t about having a workable index of my old gardening magazines. Instead it’s about a voyage of discovery through the past, one which may yield the answer to my needs but might simply be an interesting way to spend my time.
Ben, I enjoyed your story about indexing bits from old garden magazines. I read last week that antiquarian bookstores are being scoured for rare books by AI companies. Anthropic, most notably, is tearing off bindings, scanning books and then discarding or recycling. Amazon is in on the game, too. Be careful if a robot comes knocking on your door.
It’s depressing to think of those great works being destroyed, and not even to be made available to the masses as digital copies. We all seem to be on a downward spiral.
I’ve been reading “The New Garden Encyclopedia” circa 1946, “written by a group of horticultural experts and edited by E.L.D. Seymour, B.S.A.”
You have to know something about modern gardening so you won’t take the book’s advice on spraying or dusting dangerous chemicals like lead. But otherwise, there are a lot of familiar plant names and old techniques that don’t use plastics.
Yes that’s an excellent point; if you didn’t know much about modern gardening but had the idea that old gardeners did things best then things could very much go awry.
Have you read “Life in the Gardeners’ Bothy” by Arthur Hooper?. He was a gardener on English landed estates from 1920s to the outbreak of World War Two.
I haven’t but will look out for it, thank you.
Ah Ben, this is lovely. I often say that if I were to have another go at life I would be a librarian. Cheers,
My books are a wonderful escape.
Ben,
I enjoyed reading your article. What is the name of the lovely camellia at the beginning of your article?
This was a seedling of Camellia sasanqua. If I wanted one like this I would grow Camellia ‘Navajo’.
So many rabbit holes to dive into when you open your heart to vintage garden writing. Ben, I think you have a wonderful hobby. As you find cool stuff in those dusty pages, don’t be shy about sharing!
There may be a follow-up…
This reminded me of my first original research project, in college: researching the role of Garden Clubs in the early environmentalist movement, using primarily the local and state gardening related magazines, journals, and Garden Club meeting notes hoarded by a local woman of an earlier generation (whose home had become a museum).
As a science focused person, I discovered for the first time how much I could learn from history.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane!
A wonderful project. Would you consider writing a follow-up rant about things that “haven’t changed when they really should have”? I’d love to read more about that.