Hello, dear readers! With the dog days of August now soundly underway, I’m sure those of you with large lawns, gardens, or greenhouses are sweating up a storm trying to tend the fruits of your own “prettyish kind of little wilderness,” as our dear Jane describes it in Pride and Prejudice. If—like me—you live in the American Southeast on property that is woodland-adjacent, no doubt you’re stooping endlessly to pick up limbs knocked to the ground by the most recent tropical storm. (My Uncle Garry is having a rough time with his pecan trees.) If you live in a hilly city, you might be battling weeds that have overtaken your terraced rows of geraniums and hydrangeas. If you live in an apartment with no outdoor area to speak of—well, good for you! Enjoy your houseplants from the comfort of your air-conditioned living space.
In Jane Austen’s time, maintaining one’s family land was very important. Affluent members of society—the gentry and nobility, such as Mr. Knightley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh—often hired tenant farm workers to care for the grounds, tend crops for profit and livelihood, cultivate lands for livestock, and maintain elaborate gardens. In Sense and Sensibility, Mrs. Jennings declares that Delaford Estate, Colonel Brandon’s ancestral home, is “quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered with the best fruit-trees in the country,” with “such a mulberry tree in one corner!... [T]here is a dove-cote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a very pretty canal; and every thing in short, that one could wish for.”
Women, for whom day-to-day entertainment tended to comprise a monotonous routine of reading, drawing, embroidery, playing pianoforte, and other sedentary pursuits considered appropriate for the fairer sex, especially valued time in the great outdoors. A home garden offered fresh air and exercise vital to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, staving off boredom in the Georgian and Regency eras. You could observe the flowers blooming in real time, take inventory of the bugs and beetles crawling around the soil—take a stroll through the apple orchard with your true love, returning to the house with news of your engagement.
After all, the grounds of an estate were one of the only spaces in which society condoned private conservation. According to the Chawton House website, “Social etiquette dictated that whilst indoors everyone was often confined to the same room, whereas in the garden people could break apart and hold their own private conversations or even break away from the rest of their party to wander in reflective solitude. It is perhaps due to this that some of Austen’s most dramatic scenes play out in the gardens. It is a private walk through the gardens at Barton Park that Eleanor learns from Lucy Steele that she is secretly engaged to her own love Edward Ferrars. Lady Catherine takes Elizabeth Bennet for a walk through the gardens at Longbourn, and it is there that she attacks Elizabeth over the rumours regarding her engagement to Darcy.”
But gardens, as recreational as they might be, were also a practical necessity for many families. In the Georgian era, gardens were instrumental in providing herbs and produce for family kitchens, as well as free natural remedies for those who could not afford to pay the local physician for a visit. To keep plants alive during the winter, gardeners insulated them with horse manure-based compost and covered them with hotboxes, pots, or glass domes. “City” or “town gardens” also existed for those living in more populated areas, like Bath or London, with ornamental flowering plants featuring paved or gravel paths and geometric garden beds.
On the topic of favorite flowers, Jane Austen divulged to her sister Cassandra the following in a letter dated 8 February 1807:
Our garden is putting in order by a man who bears a remarkably good character, has a very fine complexion, and asks something less than the first. The shrubs which border the gravel walk, he says, are only sweetbriar and roses, and the latter of an indifferent sort; we mean to get a few of a better kind, therefore, and at my own particular desire he procures us some syringas. I could not do without a syringa, for the sake of Cowper’s line. We talk also of a laburnum. The border under the terrace wall is clearing away to receive currants and gooseberry bushes, and a spot is found very proper for raspberries.
Clearly, Jane was no stranger to the garden. If you’re looking to cultivate your very own Georgian- or Regency-inspired stomping grounds, try planting some of her favorite shrubs or flowers. Sweetbriar roses would make a lovely border around any home foundation, and just think of how much money you’d save on summer groceries if you planted a berry bush or two in your backyard! Even if you’re working with limited outdoor space, you could try making an Austen-themed shoebox garden or terrarium with silk flowers. The possibilities are endless!
Left to Right: Sweet Briar (Eglantine Rose), Syringa (Lilac), Laburnum (Golden Chain Tree)
Further reading: In the Garden With Jane Austen (Kim Wilson), Regency Gardens (Mavis Batey)
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