The Florist's manual

The Florist's manual, or Hints for the construction of a gay flower garden : with observations on the best methods of preventing the depredations of insects : to which is added, a catalogue of common herbaceous plants, with their colours, as they appear in each season

Hints for the construction of a gay flower garden

1816

Eb/1816/ [DeBeer Special Collections]

Printed for Henry Colburn: London

Maria Jacson (mis-spelled Jackson) (1755-1829) wrote her book The Florist's Manual (1816) for middle-class women, so that their choice and arrangement of plants would ‘procure a succession of enamelled borders' (p.4) through spring and summer. She criticized the taste for ‘American gardens' created at great cost for acid-loving plants, and the pre-occupation with rarities. Instead she promoted the ‘mingled flower garden', one of the first which achieved its effect by grouping hardy perennials and annuals, such as hollyhocks, dahlias, sunflowers, poppies and carnations. Her book - written anonymously - is one of the earliest gardening manuals written by a woman, for women.