► MY LIFE IN HISTORY
MEET THE PEOPLE BRINGING THE PAST TO LIFE
Historic gardener
Michael Brown
What led you to embark on a career as a historic gardener?
I had been interested in history since I was a child, so after enjoying a career as a professional gardener (including time as a head gardener), I decided I wanted to learn how people in the past looked after their plants and see whether I could apply those techniques to the present day.
Through my research, I found that many of the modern gardening tools we use today were first adopted by the ancient Romans, and a lot of early gardening practices were copied from books written by the Romans, too. I also learned about the practical uses of the plants themselves, which were not only eaten as food, but used to make medicines, cosmetics and dyes. Even roses, which we now consider to be purely decorative, had many other uses in the past. Some people still use rose flavouring in food or as cosmetics, but our ancestors also used them medicinally.
What sources did you use during your research?
When it came to researching the medieval period, I spent a lot of time studying pictures from illuminated manuscripts to see how gardens were set out and the tools that were used to maintain them. I also visited the British Library to research original documents, and I translated a lot of information from a book that had been written in medieval French.
Studying gardening in later periods was much easier, especially when I could find printed material written in English. What surprised me is how little gardening tools and practices changed over the centuries, even if the gardens themselves evolved as new styles came in and out of fashion.
It was also interesting to discover how plants from newly discovered parts of the world made a difference to the gardens of the wealthy.
Could you discuss a favourite garden you have worked on?
That’s an easy one to answer: the Medieval Garden at Prebendal Manor in Nassington, Northamptonshire, which I designed and created. The planting was completely authentic for the period, and I even crafted my own medieval tools, including a dibber, a scythe, a besom broom and a wooden spade with a metal edge. The smaller areas of grass were cut using the scythe and a pair of sheep shears, while pruning was carried out with a medieval-style pruning knife. Similarly, rather than using string and wire, the vines and roses were all tied in place using willow withies.
In addition to my work at Prebendal Manor, I have helped to create many other period gardens, reflecting a wide variety of different styles; I cover everything from the ancient Roman period to modern times.
How different are modern gardens to those of the past?
Unless they look after an allotment, most people don’t grow much of their own food. Although they might tend a few pots of herbs, salad crops and tomatoes, modern conveniences mean people don’t have to grow everything that they eat or need. I have often looked at the failed crops in my own allotment and realised that if I had been alive in earlier times, I would have been facing starvation over the winter months.
Another thing that has changed is that machinery and technology has replaced humans, so fewer people now work in gardens as a fulltime profession. Whereas large estates may have once had a hundred or more gardeners, they now only have four or five. A ride-on mower can quickly do the work that a dozen men with scythes would have once taken a week to finish.
It’s also important to note that only the wealthy would have had gardens devoted to pleasure and recreation, and some landowners would have had no qualms about removing houses and their occupants if they spoiled the view.
“Using a scythe is no more dangerous than using a lawn mower, and is much better from an ecological point of view”
Do we still use any historic gardening methods today?
Most of us still dig our gardens, but we don’t tend to use the ‘trenching’ and ‘double digging’ methods [used to increase soil drainage and aeration] that were in widespread use as recently as the early 1900s. Grass cutting is different, too: not many gardeners today would use a scythe to trim their lawn, even though it is no more dangerous than using a lawn mower and is much better from an ecological point of view.
Weeding has always been a time consuming but important task for gardeners, and much of gardening past and present has involved removing unwanted plants. What has changed, however, are which plants have been considered weeds. Many of the so-called ‘weeds’ of today were important to our ancestors, but as their use fell into decline, they became unloved.
Interestingly, though, the growing popularity of wildflower lawns and gardens has meant that some weeds are now back as garden plants, and as a bonus, attract more insects into the garden.
One thing that has always remained constant is people’s love of gardening. As a historic gardener, my job is to tell people how gardening was done in the past and how essential it was for survival.
MICHAEL BROWN is a gardener, author and horticultural lecturer, who gives talks and costumed demonstrations as The Historic Gardener (historicgardener.co.uk). His new book, A Guide to Medieval Gardens: Gardens in the Age of Chivalry, was published earlier this year by White Owl