Avatar photo

Bruce Bucknell

Former British Deputy High Commissioner Kolkata

Part of UK in Minsk

23rd August 2013

Readers’ questions: Constant gardeners

Why is there a huge passion for parks, gardens and lawns in Britain?
Eugene Petrashkevich

Dear Eugene:  thank you for your question – I’ve simplified it from your original version. I understood your question as asking why we have gardens and parks for pleasure, rather than for necessity (to grow vegetables and fruit to eat).

One of the main aims of my blog was to improve the knowledge and understanding of my country amongst Belarusians.  Answering factual questions is easier than explaining phenomena.  This subject is a good example.

It’s true:  Britons are serious gardeners. In 2010, we spent £75 for every person in the United Kingdom on domestic gardens. We have many gardening organisations – the largest is the Royal Horticultural Society which organises the Chelsea Flower Show in May, a highlight of the London season.

Even in our cities, we much prefer to live in houses with gardens rather than apartments as our European neighbours. We have a strong passion for lawns – large flat areas of grass (or газон, лужайка or батист in Russian and траўнік in Belarusian), like those on which tennis is played at Wimbledon. We also love golf – a game for which large areas of maintained grass are essential.

We have some fantastic large gardens owned by organisations like the National Trust which millions visit every year.  London has more green space than, for example, Paris;  much is part of the Royal Parks, but there are other large green spaces like Hampstead Heath.

So:  yes, we love our gardens and green parks.

But why? Understanding human behaviour and feelings is the realm of theory, not fact.  I haven’t found a convincing theory to explain adequately our love of gardens and green spaces.  I’m not sure we are so unique in loving greenery or the natural world.  The Germans, for example, have a particularly strong love of forests.

Let me set out the elements that probably make us stronger lovers of gardens than other nations. 130821 garden 179

Our climate is mild and damp. There are relatively few days of frost, so a wide selection of hardy (frost resistant) and semi-hardy (frost tolerant) plants can survive and grow.

The geology across all of the British Isles is varied, with many types of soil. Much of the landscape is made up of low ridges of gently rolling hills. With water widely available, the British Isles are “green and pleasant” lands for much of the year – excellent for growing roses, the national symbol of England.

Despite our lush natural vegetation, we haven’t always been green-fingered.  The European tradition for gardens came from the Romans with their villas (based on earlier Grecian groves?)  In Medieval Europe gardens were mostly in monasteries, growing vegetables for food, and herbs for cures.  It was only during the Renaissance that decorative gardens were revived in Italy and France.

A distinctive English garden developed in the 18th century, with English landscape gardens.  They were a reaction to the formal designs and lines of plants of the “tamed nature” of French and Italian gardens (though designs of English landscape gardens were as much romantic idealisations of classical countryside, than of the indigenous, British landscape).

Perhaps the continuity of our history has played a part – especially in the preservation of such as the Royal Parks in London, and in the large gardens of country estates.  There were no revolutions to force the opening of, and building on, green spaces in cities or the country estates of the aristocracy.

Affluence helped establish the cult of the garden with the new middle classes that emerged as a result of the industrial revolution. Garden suburbs were a feature in Birmingham, Leeds and other large industrial cities.

Gardening was a craze in the later 19th century when Britons introduced new plants they had discovered in other parts of the world. Glasshouses became widely available, so that many could enjoy growing frost sensitive plants, especially tropical fruits.  nd the popularity of lawns was helped by the development of the mechanised lawn mower.  The flower borders of designers like Gertrude Jekyll became popular in larger houses, and the English cottage garden in the country villages.

There may also be the cultural factor of British people wanting their space and privacy. What better way than working quietly in your garden? That most anglophile of French enlightenment thinkers, Voltaire, may have been thinking of Britain when he suggested we should all cultivate our gardens.  But having a garden as antidote to the man-made world isn’t a particular British theme.

City parks have long enjoyed popular support, and strong protection.  Even today, emotional debate soon starts whenever there are proposals to build on the “green belts” that ring our largest cities, especially that around London.

As for “The Constant Gardener”, the film about a British diplomat who enjoys gardening:  yes, I too enjoy getting my fingers green.  As I live in an apartment building in the centre of Minsk, I haven’t done any gardening.  I have enjoyed seeing the gardens of the dachas outside Minsk. I envy my colleague in Budapest who lives in a villa with a wonderful rose garden.

But we cannot take our flora for granted. Britain, and the rest of Europe, is suffering from a new disease that we call ash die back, a bacteria that is killing our ash trees. This is not the first time some of our species have been hit by a bacterial disease – elms suffered the same fate in 1970s. The spread of such diseases is why we have strong controls on the trade in plants.

Gardening tends to be for older people. Whether it will continue to be so popular in Britain, I don’t know. Some of the previous fashions have passed – no one grows grapefruit in greenhouses now. But in the era of climate change, gardens are our own meters to indicate whether the seasons are indeed changing or not.

7 comments on “Readers’ questions: Constant gardeners

  1. Thanks a lot for an article! I do love gardening too. I have been to some Chelsea Flowers Shows in recent years and yes – a lot of old people coming there. I am 35 years old but for me having my fingers green is the best way of relaxation.
    In USSR a lot of people planted vegetables on their dachas in order to feed their families. But in recent years dachas became more relaxing and grass-and-flowers designed places. We pay much more attention to Greens nowadays.
    I love english gardening tradition and style more than other Europien styles.
    And I respect a big attention of Britons to every tree on their yard! It is so cute and so humanistic!
    I also live in a flat (but we have a nice green view) and I dream about the private house in order to make a perfect green zone around my life 🙂

    1. Ksenia: thanks for your comments. I hope you enjoyed your visits to the Chelsea Flower Show. You’re right: gardening doesn’t have to be for older people, and it is a good way to relax.

  2. Nice blog. You reminded me of some colonial houses with large gardens in Africa built before I was born. Yet they are still intact looking beautiful and isolated.

  3. Dear Bruce,
    you have asked us – your readers -why there is such a huge passion for parks , gardens and lawns. Well, this I swear : These passion is really not only in Great Britain alive But thanks a lot for all these blue links. They were very interesting to me.Anyway, there are 3 “K”-Sentences in your fine & sensitive article.
    #1 : We do surely love garden and parks for they are like little islands of peace , beauty and -esp. in a ” Mega-City” a source of silence. In Greater London for example the area of Sloane Square, Canary Wharf , Belgrave or Kensington Garden (not to forgetten good old Hyde Park!) Just beautiful! And we do prefer them in re. of necessities for we are no longer depending on them.We ´re since a longer time able to buy vegetables or fruiits at supermarkets. #2 : London has surely more “green” to offer as any other EU/EC -Capitol. But you shouldn ´t forget, that London is also the biggest one by far. (Paris : = 7,3 mio inhabitants, London = 13 millions, Berlin = 3,5 mio. inhabitants. ) #3 : I ´m convienced that (framous) “Blockbuster ” movies, extraordinary books , wonderful paintings and well known charts-hits like “Everything is coming up roses” (Black), ” I ´ve never promised you a rosegarden ” (Bette Midler), “Goodbye English Rose” Elton John or “Where the wild roses grow ” Nick Cave / Kylie Minogue and all of them UK -Chart Toppers do have a strong impact to many, many people. It ´s to me human nature. And so I do think too, that this 7Times (!) Oscar winning movie “The constant gardener”( 1999) with all these fantastic landscape-scenes of Africa and all the outstanding pictures in combination with a thrilling-story have there share of why we do loving all kind of gardens, oasis, plants, some kind of zoos and parks so much.
    Best wishes+ take care- plus a lot of greetings from a German, sitting deep and hidden in a hole of the “Black Forest”. A guats nächtle aus Stutengarten /Nordschwarzwald, Ingo-Steven

    1. Ingo-Steven: thank you again for your words. I challenge you to keep your comments shorter – brevity is the soul of wit!

  4. A lovely article that makes me want to take a trip back home. However, an article about the British and gardens would not be complete with out at least one mention of Capability Brown – the greatest of English gardeners. To put the English love of gardening in perspective… Lancelot “Capability” Brown is a celebrity gardener who designed his first garden in 1739!

    1. Tim: thanks for your comments. Capability Brown designed more than 170 parks – a huge output.

Comments are closed.

About Bruce Bucknell

Bruce was the British Deputy High Commissioner in Kolkata from 2016 to 2019. Previously he was Ambassador in Minsk from July 2012 to January 2016. Bruce grew up on a…

Bruce was the British Deputy High Commissioner in Kolkata from 2016 to 2019. Previously he was Ambassador in Minsk from July 2012 to January 2016.

Bruce grew up on a farm in southern England and enjoys walking in the countryside and visiting wild places.

He studied modern history at Durham University, and takes a keen interest in the history of the places he visits.

Bruce used to play cricket when he could see the ball. Now he enjoys watching cricket and many other sports in his spare time.

He has had a varied career in the Foreign Office. Between his postings to Amman (1988-91), Milan (1995-9) and Madrid (2003-7), he has spent much of his career in London mostly dealing with Europe and Africa.

He is married with two grown up sons.