Chapter 8 - THE COTTAGE GARDENER’S EDUCATION

Summary

Joseph Banks, director of Kew Gardens under George III and perhaps the best-known botanist of his generation, described Scotland as a ‘nation of gardeners’, claiming this had been brought about thanks to the ‘serious mind of a Scotch education’. Scots professional gardeners and plant collectors ran botanic gardens, gardens of great mansions in England and specialist London nurseries, to say nothing of their European reputation and Empire-wide renown. Yet Scottish cottage gardens and their gardeners were, as we have seen, a cause of some anxiety and despair amongst horticulturalists, social reformers and landowners in the nineteenth century, while comparisons with English cottage gardens were usually to the detriment of their Scottish counterparts.

Throughout our period cottage gardeners were subjected to surveillance, persuasion, guidance, cash inducements, exhortations and occasionally threats in attempts to get them to change their ways. It is impossible to believe that these had no effect. But while not all those with a cottage garden wanted to pay more attention to it than was strictly necessary for raising kale and potatoes, for those who did there were ever more opportunities in the nineteenth century to learn how to prepare the soil, when to sow, the most reliable crops, the hardiest roses and the newest trends. Neighbourly assistance, training, gardening magazines and manuals, school lessons and the educational projects initiated by workers themselves all contributed to those learning opportunities.

In many places it would have been difficult to avoid a never-ending flow of gardening advice and example. The village flower shows, as we have seen, became gala occasions drawing in even the most reluctant gardeners with sideshows, sports, bands and dancing. For those eager to examine the latest and most exotic blooms nurserymen brought their new and exotic plants to flower shows and head gardeners displayed exhibits from their glasshouses.

The part played by conscientious landowners in cottage garden improvement was not limited to the estate competitions described in the last chapter. Many landowners, via their head gardeners of course, supplied cuttings, roots, seeds and ‘hints’ to villagers. In the early decades of the nineteenth century commentators stressed the importance for cottage gardeners of encouragement by the well-to-do, from landowners to clergy.