The ladies' companion to the flower-garden

John Loudon arrived in London from Scotland in 1803 with introductions to the circle of Sir Joseph Banks. Loudon's books were to become the major gardening guides of the nineteenth century English middle-class. He also championed the cause of the lowly professional gardener. However, the work of his wife Jane, and in particular her 1840 publication Gardening for ladies was to the garden what Mrs Beeton's cookbook was to the kitchen.

Jane Loudon became a gardener only after her marriage to her famous husband. She encouraged women to take more than a fashionable interest and to actually plan, dig and plant their own flower gardens. Her garden designs were formal and intricate with dozens of beds, each displaying a single variety, changed three times a year to provide constant colour.

Mrs Loudon took a thoroughly sensible approach to gardening, describing ways of creating gardens on limited budgets. Her Ladies' companion to the flower garden includes advice for growing Australian native plants, which were by then becoming more readily available to English gardeners.

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