A Passion For Bedding Plants - Part Two
Those were the three most popular kinds of bedding plants, but petunias and lobelias were also very fashionable. Lobelia erinus arrived from South Africa around 1800 and selected forms were soon being carefully bred. In 1823 Petunia axillaris was discovered in Brazil and in 1830, Petunia violacea was introduced in Europe from Argentina.
All five of these flowers were raised in greenhouses. In my previous article I wrote about the greenhouses which kept the gardens of the Grand Trianon supplied with plants throughout the year. Seventeenth century greenhouses were the expensive toys of kings. The modern greenhouse is a product of the industrial revolution and it was only in the early nineteenth century that nurseries could afford to raise large numbers of bedding plants in greenhouses. While the very wealthy had their own greenhouses, most people bought bedding plants from professional growers.
Much of the information in this article comes from The Garden Triumphant: A Victorian Legacy, by David Stuart. Stuart gives information about the garden at Thornham Hall in Suffolk, to give his readers an idea of how many bedding plants might be used in the garden of a modest countryhouse. During the 1850s, this garden's parterres featured 75 large flower beds, each containing between 200 and 300 plants, as well as 75 smaller beds which each held between twenty-five and thirty plants. This added up to about 1600 plants. While the garden was dominated by the bedding plants already mentioned, it also featured less commonly used plants such as Felicia, Gaillardia, Cuphea, Lantana, and Gazania. It is important to remember that this was a an age of plant explorers and that many gardeners were interested in unusual plants; not just the latest hybrid geraniums.
The plants in the previous paragraph would have been planted out in June and removed before the first frost. A modest parterre would usually also have a spring planting of bulbs and early blooming annuals or biennials, such as pansies. Many wealthy Victorians followed the example of Louis XIV and employed armies of gardeners who changed color schemes in flowerbeds overnight so that their guests would wake to a transformed garden. Part of the reason why this style of planting remained popular for decades is because it was perfectly suited to wealthy industrialists who lived in exclusive suburbs near their places of business. Their suburban mansions were built on large
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