Herbaceous Borders - Part One

A square compartment at the center of the garden features small planting beds arranged in an intricate pattern, or "knot". This compartment is framed by narrow planting beds. In his book "Paradisi in Sole: Paradisus Terrestris", which was first published in 1629, John Parkinson recommended that gardeners not mix what he termed "out-landish flowers" with "English flowers". The English flowers that he was referring to were the hardy perennials and biennials which had been grown in English gardens for centuries. The out-landish flowers were recent introductions, especially bulbs. Parkinson wrote that if you arrange out-landish flowers correctly in your garden, you should "not set or plant them among your English flowers; for when the one may be removed, the other may not be stirred."

It was standard practice in Renaissance gardens for knots to be planted with rare bulbs, while the surrounding borders would be planted with less rare and expensive flowers and herbs. Parkinson wrote that roses were for the most part "planted in the outer beds of the quarters, and sometimes by themselves in the middle of long beds"; this indicates that Parkinson was thinking of typical Renaissance gardens like the one in the woodcut.

As I stated at the beginning of this article, between 1840 and 1870, a passion for bedding plants swept though the British isles. Newly introduced annuals and tender perennials became so popular, that most hardy perennials were banished from fashionable flower gardens. By the 1860's many gardeners were becoming nostalgic for old fashioned flower gardens. In 1862, a writer expressed the feelings of many gardeners by asking "Where be my Primroses, my Narcissuses, my Daffodils, my Paeonies, my Saxafrages, my Hyacinths, my Roses, my irises, my Pinks, my Picotees? Where be my storied plants (I mean my plants with a story attached to them) to make the way pleasant to my guests that saunter the borders?...Where be all these gone? - sacrificed to the exigencies of ribbon beds....What a charming bond of union between a whole circle of neighbors to communicate with each other about their new acquisitions. How different now! ...What good to my neighbor a cartload of my thousand bedding out plants - he has another thousand just the same".

Parkinson's book, "Paradisi in Sole: Paradisus Terrestris" is one of the best sources for information about seventeenth century English flower gardens, so it was natural that romantics who yearned for old fashioned flower gardens

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