Just the Thing For the Garden

Now the drought is over I am returning to the garden in an attempt to rescue the parched remains and thinking it might be time for a makeover. And where better to turn for landscaping tips than Ackermann’s Repository of the Arts?

Of course, it does help if one has several acres and significant financial resources, to say nothing of strapping young men with spades and wheelbarrows…

But I will not be put off by the lack of acres and wheelbarrows (the one on the left is by W H Pyne) because the issue for February 1800 informs me that “Great diversity of surface may, in general, be obtained at no objectionable expense, if the labour be discreetly governed. To sink the valley and raise the hill is a good rule, when properly applied; in which case, the advantages produced are so immediate and striking, as amply to compensate for every exertion for every exertion: hence plants and trees obtain the appearance of several growths, as they are situated on greater or lesser elevations and produce varieties of incident, and opposition of light, shadow, form and colour, that cannot be effected on level ground.”

Apparently, once I have excavated and elevated I will have created something ideal for “garden seats, temples and alcoves… suited to retirement and study.” I don’t think a temple would work, but Ackermann helpfully illustrates an “alcove” that might fit in. It would certainly startle the neighbours.

“The style of this little building is light and elegant, but of no specific architectural character; and from its arrangements and design, should be rather splendid in its furnishings than otherwise. The pillars are of iron, and from them are suspended china pattera, of rich colours: the chains are gilt, as is the terminal of the roof. The scale-like forms of the roof-covering are of thin lead, and might be richly painted: indeed the whole should be so decorated as to become highly ornamental, and be in splendid harmony with the accompanying parterres and flower-beds.”

Somehow I think this might be more the scale of project that my resources will run to – another Ackermann print, this time from September 1820