John Claudius Loudon - father of the English garden - Loudon, the journalist

Loudon, the journalist

In 1826, Loudon founded his successful journal, The Gardener’s Magazine, which continued for 19 years. Initially it was published quarterly, then bi-monthly, and finally monthly. It ‘was a survey of contemporary domestic and foreign horticultural affairs including book reviews and educational articles for gardeners. It also provided Loudon with an organ for his own personal and trenchant opinions’.[13]

An example of carpet bedding. Copyright Louise WickhamThe Gardener’s Magazine was not the first gardening journal, but it certainly was one of the most influential due to the quality of its writing and its large middle-class audience. Loudon’s personal reports of the garden tours that he undertook led to ‘garden tourism’ becoming the popular pastime that it remains today.

Loudon married Jane Webb in 1830. She was a novelist, and after her marriage Jane Loudon became a well-known writer on horticulture and botany - the first woman to do so. Her books were aimed at the growing number of middle- and upper-class women who were interested in gardening. She encouraged use of the bedding schemes that became so popular in the Victorian period, their intricate displays being changed three times a year. The design of these, she argued, was particularly appropriate for the ladies of the house as they had the necessary degree of taste and artistic feeling. Jane Loudon paved the way for the famous plantswomen of the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West.

In 1831 Loudon undertook the planning of the Birmingham Botanical Garden. The design shows his return to formality, with more straight paths and ordered areas such as ‘parterres for annuals and a rosary…a botanical garden of trees, shrubs and perennials…a flower garden…an orchard and fruit nursery…(and) a kitchen garden and agricultural garden’.[14]

At Birmingham, Loudon’s views on what he termed ‘gardenesque’ planting began to take shape, and he first used the term in The Gardener’s Magazine in 1832. The inclusion of exotic trees and shrubs (correctly labelled) were known as the ‘Principle of Recognition’.

Glasshouses and terrace. Copyright Birmingham Botanical Gardens In the first edition of the magazine in 1826, Loudon had observed that ‘landscape gardening about a century ago was as much the fashion as horticulture is at present’, meaning that the contents of the garden were now of more importance than its overall design. The reason for this shift in emphasis was primarily ‘the enormous inflow of new plants … from (new) lands’.[15] While the gardenesque is often derided today as a mixed - or even rather confused – style, with certain plants given prominence, its circular beds are still much used today.

1838 saw the publication of The Surburban Gardener and Villa Companion, which re-stated Loudon’s view that the key to a successful garden was to match the style with the size. While flowing, informal lines worked well for a large estate (100 acres or more), a more formal, geometric layout suited the smaller plot.

In the same year, Loudon published another of his major works: Arboretum et Fruiticetum Britannicum, which was designed to encourage ‘gentlemen of landed property …(to introduce) a greater variety of trees and shrubs in their plantations and pleasure grounds’.[16] His ideas were put into practice at Bicton where he gave advice on the arboretum and the design of the Monkey Puzzle Avenue, laid out in 1842.