“Papaver orientale. Oriental Poppy.” The Ladies’ Flower-Garden of Ornamental Perennials by Mrs. Loudon, 1843.

      “This is the handsomest of all the poppies. The flowers are very large, still more so than those of the preceding species, but in other respects at first sight they are scarcely to be distinguished asunder; though on closer inspection, it will be found that the hairs on the calyx and stem are closely pressed in a slanting direction, while those of the previous species spread horizontally. It also flowers a little earlier. It is a native of Mount Caucasus, and was introduced in 1817.”

      I particularly treasure my copy of Mrs. Loudon’s My Own Garden; or The Young Gardener’s Year Book (1855), a charming, small volume illustrated with exquisite hand-colored engravings depicting flowers of the four seasons. Her magnum opus, The Ladies’ Flower-Garden (c. 1855–59), a five-volume botanical masterpiece, is much more than a book for women gardeners or children. Indeed, with its three hundred chromolithograph plates and detailed descriptions of more than a thousand species in various categories—bulbs, annuals, perennials, greenhouse plants, wildflowers—it ranks as one of the most beautiful, useful, and readable botanical encyclopedias of all time. The fact that Jane Loudon’s Christian name was never used in ascribing the authorship of this or her other books, and that her principle role was that of her husband’s amanuensis, should not obscure the fact that his star pupil was his peer in terms of horticultural and botanical knowledge and literary productivity. Accompanying every plate depicting related individuals of a particular flower species are comprehensive accounts of each one’s appearance, botanical structure, growth habit, native origin, medicinal and other uses, and horticultural requirements. When I once saw a set of these sumptuous volumes in the library at Garland Farm in Bar Harbor, Maine, the final home of the pioneering landscape garden designer Beatrix Farrand, I realized that, unlike some other books containing exquisite botanical illustrations, The Ladies’ Flower-Garden could be a useful reference tool for professional as well as amateur gardeners, an observation that still holds true today.

      Frances Garnet, Viscountess Wolseley

      Half a century later, as Victorian attitudes toward woman’s place were beginning to relax, Frances Garnet, 2nd Viscountess Wolseley (1872–1936), could go one step further than Jane Loudon in terms of encouraging women to become gardeners. In 1902 she founded the College for Lady Gardeners in Glynde, Sussex, a school to educate female students to do the same kind of horticultural labor—digging beds, preparing the soil, planting, weeding, watering, harvesting—that was the traditional domain of men. In opening the door of the previously all-male world of horticultural employment to women, she was well ahead of her time. (It was not until 1932 when Beatrix Havergal started the Waterperry School of Horticulture that a handful of women followed the founder in achieving recognition by the prestigious Royal Horticultural Society.)

      When Wolseley wrote In a College Garden (1916), the world around her was rapidly changing. World War I had brought to a close the period when houseguests strolled along gravel paths set between wide planting beds bordered by clipped hedges and tea was carried by servants across verdant lawns to people lounging in wicker chairs in the shade of ancient trees. Sounding very much like the headmistress she had been before turning the operation of her college over to a former student who ran it according to the strict principles she had established, she reflected on her creation of “a garden complete enough to afford ample preparation to those women who wish to make a livelihood by gardening.”

      Like Mrs. Jane Loudon, Viscountess Wolseley felt it necessary to attire the female gardener “in the way of dress which is neat and yet essentially becoming and feminine.” She believed that the student uniform should be simple, practical, and tidy, describing it thus:

      It consists of coat and skirt, khaki in colour, because the earth here, having so much lime in it, is light-coloured, and therefore does not show upon drab-coloured cloth. Over this when busy [the students] wear a Hessian canvas apron containing roomy pockets for knife, raffia, tarred twine, and many other requisites that a gardener has constant need of. The skirts are what are called ‘Aviation’ ones, and are cut so that in windy weather, although they are short, they always cling neatly to the figure. Brown boots and leggings are below, and students are thus able to walk in and out of rows of cabbages or other vegetables and plants on a rainy day without having that heavy, wet, and tiring drag which is the drawback of an ordinary skirt. . . . A white shirt and brown felt soft-rimmed hat complete the uniform, so that only touches of colour come from the hat and silk sailor tie, and both these are red, white, and blue, which are the colours of the College.