British Gardening History

I've just looked at your blog, which seems to undermine your argument, as no post has attracted more than two comments! That's no criticism of the content, just an observation that perhaps you're not best placed to dictate what others should and should not be doing.

It was written by amateur pomologists as part of their application to our national fruit review panel. I agree blogs are a helpful medium and am setting one up to complement my forthcoming book on local Stamford UK apples, but am not in the habit of dictating how others should present their work.

This isn't my report!

3/3 from Tom Adams (Tom the Apple Man) and F P Matthews. In the meantime, the Marcher Apple Network has access to a limited quantity of scionwood. If you are interested in the latter please DM me, including your email address. Trees currently on the market are not DNA matches.

2/3 You can read the story of Rymer's rediscovery here 1drv.ms/b/c/30fab923.... Ainsleigh, Gary and I are now trying to unravel its early history and the possibility it was wrongly named 2 centuries ago. Young trees will be available from next winter

LOST APPLE 'RYMER' REDISCOVERED! Thanks to amazing sleuthing by Stephen Ainsleigh Rice in England and Gary Sully in Australia, this wonderful cooking apple has been confirmed rediscovered. Believed lost for nearly 100 years, DNA testing shows it was a grandparent of Bramley. 1/3

'December' from Eliot Hodgkin's 'The Months', 1950. The first Christmas roses, seasonal greenery, a dainty indoor cyclamen, a shop-bought anemone, a clementine from Spain and two shy early violets, with their promise of spring.

to his right the honorary secretary, Joseph Sabine, and to his left, head of the Society's gardens, John Turner. Turner did a splendid job gathering, planting and cataloguing specimens, but the year of this painting he fled to France having embezzled money from the Society. 2/2

'Exhibition Extraordinary at the Horticultural Society of London' (later the RHS), George Cruikshank, 1826, City of London archives. Presiding over this mockery of the Society's pomposity sit the chairman, John Elliott, 1/2

The Greenhouse and The Garden, Eric Ravilious, 1932

A selection of more than 100 varieties of apple grown at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, in Norfolk, displayed and labelled for its annual Apple Day.

'November' from Eliot Hodgkin's 'The Months', 1950. A brocade-coloured chrysanthemum, reddening geranium leaves, the first blanched chicory, arbutus unedo fruits, bulbs and seeds for autumn planting.

Not from Britain, but such a beautiful photo. Workers stripping jasmine flowers for the perfume industry in 1915, at a convent turned into a factory in Notre Dame des Fleurs, Grasse, Southern France. The fragrance must have been intoxicating! Meanwhile, further north, war raged ...

A good haul (and a well-loved, hand-knitted gardening cardigan)! Found, mid-century photo.

What a lovely memory. Crab apples are such brilliant pollinators and were also grown in traditional mixed orchards to provide root stock for grafting experiments. I once saw a photo of a gorgeous orchard planted only with crab apples, of every flower and fruit colour. Oh to have the land!

Golden Crab Apples, Eliot Hodgkin, 1957, private collection.

First published in 1956, and written by Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, 6th baronet (1897-1988, brother of the eccentric Dame Edith), this remains an excellent bibliographical record of two centuries of finely-illustrated flower books from around the world.

I believe cooking apples, but the jury is out

'October' from Eliot Hodgkin's 'The Months', 1951. Cooking apples take centre stage, flanked by grapes, fungi and the first celery and Brussels sprouts. There's a button chrysanthemum, fluffy Old Man's Beard, a shiny conker and a reddening leaf of Virginia Creeper.

'The Garden', Charles Mahoney, 1950

Tea in the garden for an unknown Edwardian family.

'Yellow Ox-eye daisies', Charles Mahoney (1903-1968), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Mahoney painted this post-war study of telekia speciosa at his garden in Wrotham, Kent, where he had constructed his studio from munition packing cases.

Thank you for your kind words.

September from The Months, Eliot Hodgkin, 1950. A soft orange dahlia takes centrepiece, alongside the first sweetcorn cob and first of the autumn apples. There are delicate trails of Virginia creeper and blackberries, and a sprinkling of mushrooms and nuts.

Joseph & Florence Pemberton and their roses At one of our open garden days recently visitors were admiring a group of “Buff Beauty” roses which, despite the scorching heat and  weeks of drought, still managed to show a few flower…

A very interesting new article on Joseph and Florence Pemberton and their rose introductions (Buff Beauty probably being the most famous) on The Garden History blog. thegardenhistory.blog/2025/08/30/j...

All I can discover about this painting of terraced back gardens is that the artist is an E N Thurston and that it is 'vintage'. Does anyone know more?

Very true

The consensus over on Twitter is that this is indeed Herbert and Edith Bryant!

Of course, but where plots are given up, for example by elderly people who have been struggling to keep them in good order, many Councils now lack the funds to clear and rotavate them as they used to ready for new tenants. This is a way in which some sites gradually fall into disrepair.

I agree with your second paragraph, but to claim that allotments are not under threat suggests to me that you're not an allotment holder and this is an area about which you have limited knowledge. Increased funding is (understandably, given other pressures) not filtering down to allotments!!