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Designing a 1930s garden

• Message 1. 

  Posted by Rachel (U15171086) on Friday, 2nd March 2012

  So my next question is, what were typical plants to grow in the 1930s?
  
  Like I say in my previous question about identifying bulbs, I moved to this house last summer and have this small border heavy garden. I'm a novice gardener (first time I picked up a trowel was last summer) and I'd like to design a 1930s garden to match my 1930s house.
  All I've read about 1930s gardens so far is that they often had herb patches, veg patches and big borders (I can do that!), and the odd fruit tree.
  I have two young children so anything I grow needs to be as child friendly as possible. We're starting this garden out on a tight budget, but I'm really ambitious for the garden and want it to look lush and established quickly! Any ideas?
  I think that the soil is clay based and seems to drain poorly in certain areas.
  Any advice is very much appreciated.
  Rachel

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• Message 2

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  Posted by garyhobson (U11055016) on Saturday, 3rd March 2012

  This is an interesting, and quite original, idea.
  
  Many years ago, there was a fashion for modernising old houses. The Â鶹Éç's Barry Bucknell was at the forefront of this movement, which gave rise to 'DIY'. Under the influence of Bucknell, many people destroyed the fabric of period houses, replacing period fittings by modern plastic and plywood. It seemed a good idea at the time.
  
  And now, many people, who are fortunate to live in a period property, are ripping out Barry Bucknell's 'improvements', and trying to restore their homes to their former state.
  
  The idea that ripping everything out, and giving a garden a 'makeoever' is still very fashionable among garden designers. There are many TV 'makeover' programs, but very few (none?) questioning the sense of doing that; or asking any questions about the destruction of our gardening heritage.
  
  So the idea of restoring a garden, like restoring a house, does have a certain appeal.
  
  You've apparently done some research on this subject. I don't know of any 1930s popular plants off-hand.
  
  Sissinghurst, a much-admired, garden was created during the 1930s, but is probably not typical.
  
  There are books about 1930s homes, which touch on gardens, such as this one:
  
  
  That mentions gnomes, and crazy paving, and has a few photos.

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  Posted by Palaisglide (U3102587) on Saturday, 3rd March 2012

  Rachel, I can tell you those gardens in the 1930's had to keep the family in food mainly, so the vegetable patch took up most of the garden and that went for all the new houses being built around us at the time.
  We had a very old house with a fully walled garden which my Father worked in every daylight hour when not working at his transport business.
  We had animals, pigs hens geese ducks a goat in part of it although the rest was down to year round vegetables.
  The walls were covered in fruit trees, Victoria plum Willams pears and a very large cooking pear. There were currant bushes all colours, gooseberry, strawberry beds,
  and even a grape in the greenhouse, a large leanto on a south facing wall which had a built in stove for winter heating. That grew tomato's cucumbers peppers and even the odd melon, oddities at the time in the North East of England.
  He did grow flowers but his motto was if you cannot eat it or sell it then it is useless and this was the way with very nearly all the new houses. They were not laid to lawn with a couple of trees or bushes as we have today but left to be sorted out by the new owners who's first priority was getting it cleared of rubble and some vegetables in. Then would come the hen house with chickens for eggs, some with larger gardens would get a couple of pigs, plants and flowers were after thoughts.
  The fronts would intime have the neatly trimmed privet hedge a square of lawn and a few flowers. Snowdrops, Christmas roses, followed by the Daf's and Tulips, wallflowers, daisies, pinks, carnations and Chrysanthemums with Calandula providing splashes of colour.
  There were no garden centres as such and sending for plants through catalogues beyond the pocket of most people.
  My own father had a Huge Peony (paeonia officinalis Rubra plena) a huge clump of red flowers that never seem to last long, it had been put in long before I had been born and part of it still lives on with my sister and I.
  He also had a double row of Maddona lily (lillium Candidum) they grew to almost six feet and I loved them as a child, they were sold to the local shops along with Astors Pinks Daisies as were the snowdrops cut and tied in small button hole clumps by my mother.
  He did grow and show his Chrisanthemums very succesfully too as they could win prizes as could vegetables.
  So to sum up Rachel it was no fancy fashion show for the ordinary people but a working plot that provided food and cash at a time so many people were without work, it was hard enough for those like my parents who did have a steady income but more a matter of life or death for those whose parents were on the dole.
  They do say everything goes in cycles and as I walk around my own area I see gardens once all decked out paved and gravelled being turned back into vegetable producing area's, even with a few hens again, but it is need not fashion.
  It depends on what you wish to do, grow the flowers we saw in parks but could not afford or a working garden as we had to have.
  Frank.

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  Posted by garyhobson (U11055016) on Saturday, 3rd March 2012

  I can recall that my parents had a garden with lots of golden rod. The version that used to be popular was quite tall, and a magnificent plant, always full of insects. You can't buy that variety these days; I've tried.
  
  They also had a large rhubarb patch which was, er, fertilised by the lavatory. There was no mains sewerage in those days, where they lived.
  
  Clematis and dahlias were also popular.
  
  Here's a gardening almanac, published in 1931:
  
  
  You can try putting various plant names in the search box, and see what it says.

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• Message 5

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  Posted by Rachel (U15171086) on Saturday, 3rd March 2012

  Thank you both for your wondefrul inspired ideas.
  I can't believe I ripped a rhurbarb out last autumn as it was pushing a wall out, and might now have to reinstate it!
  My garden is in the North East of England too Palaisglide, so it's good to hear that I might be able to grow grape vines. I like the idea of the 1930s garden not being showy but practical, and I will definately look up the plants you recall. The pink astor and giant lilies sound brilliant.
  Thank you for these links to books Gary. I have the first one, and I've just got some books on garden design out of the library.
  
  What about lavender and holyhocks? I know they are more cottage garden but I assumed they'd be 1930s too. And quince? Would they have had this in the 1930s garden?
  
  I'd like to get 1930s garden furniture too, so if anyone knows of anything specific to this period, please could you let me know.
  
  Many thanks,
  Rachel

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• Message 6

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  Posted by Palaisglide (U3102587) on Saturday, 3rd March 2012

  Rachel, re-reading my post it sounds a bit forbidding, it should not deter you from fulfilling a dream, that is what we gardeners do which is why the gardens are so individual though at one time I feared decking and gravel were taking over the world.
  We had Rhubard along a shaded wall and some would have a bucket full of straw put over it to get early shoots for our first tarts and puddings.
  The grape was rooted outside the greenhouse and hung from the roof providing some shade on very hot days but ideal for the grapes and melons.
  We had herbs but also scoured the hedgeorws for wild herbs and edible leaves and mushrooms all in season of course.
  We did have lavender which was dried and put in muslin bags to freshen the beds and laundry with bowls on window sills, I still grow lots of it.
  We had quince in the orchard on the farm (my Uncles) and mother made quince jelly as well as bottling hedge row fruits and making jamss. It was a sort of family thing we gathered the brambles or bilberries and then the red white and black currants in season the women had a day making and bottling jams and fruit which would be shared out.
  The pinks were of course Dianthus, annual phlox, bearded bellflower (Campanula), Nasturtium, lots of that, Marguerite, a couple of Lilac's, Poppy and the red hot poker. Although mainly vegetable, thinking about it we did have a lot of colour in that garden until Dad got too old to manage it, I was in the army by then and abroad a lot of the time so not much help.
  We may be in the N.E. of England but do not let that put you off we are two weeks behind the rest, though with some shelter from that north wind we can grow most things.
  Fulfill your dream Rachel, done well you will have colour and year round fresh food nothing beats that.
  Frank.

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• Message 7

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  Posted by bigolob (U14267071) on Sunday, 4th March 2012

  Bedding displays were very popular pre-war which continued after 1946.
  
  Edge borders with alternate blue lobelia (not trailing) and white allisum and then use further back in the border, red Pelargoniums (geraniums) and tall Snap-dragons (Antirhinums) of all colours. Remember there was little hybridising at that time and most of the plants were used on a regular basis each year.
  
  Other items I remember as a child in the 40`s were, Nasturtians, Dahlias, Begonia (fibrous rooted) and Pansies.

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• Message 8

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  Posted by Hoc (U14458245) on Sunday, 4th March 2012

  Roses! I garden on dry sand, and have always wanted a garden overflowing with old fashioned roses, which can climb up trees, trail over fences and sheds - ahh the romance!
  Clay soil is good for roses as long as you dig in some organic matter. Bare roots roses are available now and they are quite cheap.

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