British society remembers gardeners' contributions to horticultural science

Toby Musgrave, an authority on garden history and author of The Head Gardeners (Aurum Press Ltd, 2009) wants to spread some love to gardeners. Not your run-of-the-mill gardener, mind you, but those who were in charge of Victorian and Edwardian estates. They did more than design beautiful plots of flowers, says Musgrave. “They also rapidly and comprehensively advanced horticulture. Today, however, these invisible artisans and their diverse, influential works are largely overlooked.”

He said head gardeners such as Sir Joseph Paxton, John Caie, John Gibson, John Fleming and Anthony Parsons helped advance plant physiology, pathology and breeding, and left a mark on today’s horticultural science.

Paxton introduced conservatories on estates which led to plant hunting expeditions around the world for the collection of hothouse plants such as orchids. Head gardeners also bred new garden plants and edible crops.  Parsons was a pioneer in creating new hybrids of dahlias, pansies, verbenas, petunias, hollyhocks and achimenes found in today’s gardens.

“The head gardeners’ advances and discoveries made in the sciences of horticulture, botany, plant physiology, plant pathology, and plant breeding, as well as engineering and architecture shaped the emergence of modern horticultural science and popular gardening,” said Musgrave. “Understanding the head gardeners’ role in developing new garden styles is central to understanding the conditions of their making, the evolution of the garden art form, and the continued influence these forgotten heroes exert on garden styles today.”

Musgrave will highlight the head gardener in a talk at the annual meeting of the British Society for the History of Science in Leicester, UK on July 3.