Grandmother's Garden by May Brawley Hill
The Old Fashioned American Garden 1865 - 1915 - A Review
Nov 4, 2008
Grandmother’s Garden: The Old Fashioned American Garden 1865 – 1915 by May Brawley Hill is an excellent book for gardeners with a fascination for the art and heritage of gardens. Grandmother’s Garden takes place between the Civil War and World War I, a time when events changed the look of American gardens.
History of American Gardens
This is the story of how the American everyday garden developed. Grandmother’s Garden progresses from a legacy of gardens thought to feel too English to American landscapes called cottage gardens. Hill uses examples of art throughout the book to demonstrate the changes.
The book begins on the east coast, moves through the mid Atlantic and southern states and on to gardens on the Pacific Coast. Arts and crafts movement and discoveries of the American wilderness brought influences into the garden. Gardeners began to increasingly prefer then discard their desire for native plants or curving borders at different times during this era.
American Cottage Gardens
In towns and cities away from the wild, gardens were brought in closer to the home, just outside the front door, perhaps inside a white picket fence. Gardens were growing plants with such picturesque names such as columbines, hollyhocks, poppies, foxgloves and four-o’clocks.
Grandmother’s Garden describes the influences of artists who had studied in France and brought the impressionist style back to America. The decorative arts movement brought out people like Benn Pitman who was known for advancing women in the arts, as well as for his wildflower garden.
Women Artists and American Gardens
American women were on a journey of self-discovery, developing lifestyles and careers thought, at the time, to be safe for women. Garden and art melded together and grew individual lives.
In the book are countless examples of women who were influenced in their own art by gardens. Gardens gave artists such as Emily Dickinson, Fidelia Bridges and Harriet Beecher Stowe an environment in which they were allowed to be creative.
Mentioned is Gardening by Myself (1872) by Anna Barlett Warner, thought to be the first book about American Gardens.
Grandmother’s Garden Book
This garden book has a beautiful cover, pictured is the John Leslie Breck Garden on Ironbound Island in Maine, circa 1896. The cover is colored in bold reds, golds, whites and blues.
Grandmother’s Garden includes many reproductions of oil and watercolor paintings of gardens. Black and white photographs lend factual depictions of gardeners and plants of the times.
May Brawley Hill
May Brawley Hill is an American art historian. The creation of Hill’s American garden, at home in New England, is thought to have been the catalyst for interest in studying horticulture.
More books by May Brawley Hill include:
- On Foreign Soil: American Gardeners Abroad, May 1, 2005
- Furnishing the Old Fashioned Garden: Three Centuries of American Summerhouses, Dovecotes, Pergolas, Privies, Fences & Birdhouses, September, 1998.
Title – Grandmother’s Garden: The Old-Fashioned American Garden 1865-1915
Author – May Brawley Hill
Copyright – 1995 Publisher – Harry N. Abrams, Inc.; Pages – 240
ISBN - 0-8109-3389-6
Price – Originally, $ 45. US, now found at used booksellers and online
Permission received for all photos used in this article.
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