Women’s History Month: The Legacy of Gertrude Jekyll
Every March Women's History Month raises awareness of the contributions women have made to events through history and society. In the first of a series of articles, we're looking at the legacy of garden designer Gertrude Jekyll.
Astleham Manor Cottage garden, apple orchard and Orchard Garden were inspired by the designs of Gertrude Jekyll, who was influential in shaping garden design during the early 20th Century. The geometric layout of the garden is softened by the planting style reminiscent of old English cottage gardens. Gertrude Jekyll pioneered this approach to garden design and it came to characterise many Arts and Crafts gardens.
‘I rejoice when I see any one, and especially children, inquiring about flowers, and wanting gardens of their own, and carefully working in them.’ Gertrude Jekyll
Born in 1843, Jekyll was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. From 1881, when she laid out the gardens for Munstead House, built for her mother by John James Stevenson, Jekyll provided designs or planned planting for over four hundred gardens.
Jekyll is remembered for her outstanding designs and subtle, painterly approach to the arrangement of the gardens she created, particularly her "hardy flower borders". Her work is known for its radiant colour and the brush-like strokes of her plantings. She was one of the first of her profession to take into account the colour, texture, and experience of gardens as aspects of her designs.
Beyond the Asleham apple orchard is the Orchard Garden, a quiet space to sit a while. Inspired by Gertrude Jekyll’s semi woodland planting, this garden has hellebore, foxgloves and woodland grasses, as well as wild daffodils, snowdrops and Scilla siberica in the early spring. Her first book Wood and Garden, published in 1899 celebrates this style of planting and details how a woodland inspired garden should be cultivated throughout the year.
Most of Gertrude Jekyll’s gardens have now been lost. The Museum is keeping her legacy alive through these special gardens. Visit them this spring to enjoy what Jekyll described as the “innocent charm there is about many of the true spring flowers”.
