Working class/middle class gardening...

I've looked it up too, Stingo! Looks rather like an astilbe - so that's another for my lists! :D Thanks Peter!

I find the particular alliums that don't seem to give two hoots are the Nectaroscordium - particularly when they know they're on the way up with this ref in the "Gardening with Wildlife in Mind" set-up! Now that's an area that's getting fashionable!

http://www.plantpress.com/wildlife/o1202-nectaroscordiumsiculum.php

 

Cant believe this thread exists!

Whatever next.

 

Queen of the prarie - Filipendula rubra 'Venusta'. I think it is entitled to look down on everything else. (Beth Chatto picture)

 

Eyup, that's posh.... an' I thought it were Meadowsweet fer t' castle flooer!

'Course, a REAL wekkin' class garden 'ud 'ave rows o' competition leeks fed on pig's blood an' aspirins, wi' a sidin' o' barbed wire an' a top dressin' o' chicken wire ter keep the pigeons out as comes from the loft o' that saft b*gger next door....!!!

 

:D :D :D

 

Sorry...it wasn't quite intended as a joke when I started it...actually I didn't quite start it, I started a thread about gardening books, one of which - Martin Hoyles' THE STORY OF GARDENING - is about the'hidden history' of gardening - people who actually did the WORK when Lord So-and-So 'built' such and such a stately home and 'laid out the gardens' - . Then someone moved the discussion to this thread, and it's obviously provided a lot of food for thought! I found Hoyles' book fascinating, and thought it would be interesting to see what other people thought....

Actuall it transpires that most of us just like gardening - i.e. doing the work ourselves, not intsructing our staff to do it!!!

 

I've found one other title - THE ENGLISH GARDEN _ A SOCIAL HISTORY, by Charles Quest-Ritson.

I've only read the preface so far, and he does make the point that "History is usually written by the middle classes about the activities of the upper. This is certainly true of the history of gardening".
The first sentence is a very sweeping statement, with which my partner - a historian - would certainly disagree! HE writes about the activities of Italian Communists!!!

 

reviving this topic, which everyone probably thought had died a natural death.
Yesterday I went to Chelsea Physic Garden Fair, which I loved, but was rather repelled by the fact that it was advertised as
"Britain's most exclusive Garden Party".

Does this mean that if I'd admitted that I was buying plants for my Council flat in Kilburn they'd have refused me admission??!!!!
When I got there, of course it wasn't really 'exclusive' at all....even met a colleague from the Green Party!

 

This has been a most enlightening thread! thank you all for your comments, I have loved it so much.