Home » Misc » Small victorian gardens

Small victorian gardens


9 Victorian Garden Design Ideas

Type keyword(s) to search

Today's Top Stories

1

Caitlin Wilson's 5 Tips for Designing a Bathroom

2

How to Properly Polish Brass

3

36 Best Online Home Decor Destinations

4

24 Memorable Quotes About Paris

5

26 Beautiful Christmas Mantel Decorations

Every item on this page was carefully chosen by a Veranda editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

Fanciful topiary, tropical plants, and riots of color abound in these Victorian-style gardens.

By Arricca Elin Sansone

Cassidy Moody/ Missouri Botanical Garden

With the growth of industrialization, advances in science and technology, and the fascination with innovation and exotic destinations, the Victorian Age became a time of immense creativity and experimentation in the garden. “As public gardens became more prevalent both in England and the U.S., more people fell in love with gardening,” says Dana Rizzo, senior horticulturalist and designer, South Garden beds in the Victorian district at the Missouri Botanical Garden. “The growing middle class now had the leisure time and disposable income to fill their gardens.”

Elements of Victorian design still add elegance and whimsy to modern gardens. “You don’t need to recreate an entire Victorian garden to get the feel,” says Leslie Harris, certified horticulturalist and host of the podcast, Into the Garden. “You can incorporate single elements or design a corner of your garden with these features without overwhelming your space.”

Here are the most enduring Victorian garden design traditions plus tips for how to make them part of your own garden.

1

Topiary and Clipped Greens

Copyrights by Sigfrid López

Neatly clipped hedges and greens in elaborate shapes were a standard in Victorian gardens. Traditionally, topiary was a formal element in large estate gardens and was considered a symbol of status. “You had to show off,” says Rizzo. “Your garden was in competition with others, and garden designers vied with each other for commissions from wealthy clients.”

Plant this look: If you’re not ready to hire a full-time gardener or deal with the regular maintenance of topiary, consider adding plants that retain their symmetrical forms without trimming, such as round shrubs.

SHOP ROUND SHRUBS

2

Tropical and Exotic Plants

PaulMaguire

Driven by increased exploration and travel, gardeners had more access to a number of new and unique plants from around the world. “Plant explorers brought back exotic new seeds and specimens to display at home under glass or in a glass conservatory on the estate, while plant breeders experimented with new plants,” says Harris. Tropicals, and especially ferns, were immensely popular and gave an exotic flair to gardens. Pteridomania, or “fern fever” was at its height in the mid-1800s, with collectors scouring the globe to support this new hobby.

Plant this look: Display potted tropicals, such as parlor palm, a Victorian favorite, in containers around your patio or indoors. Or, plant ferns outdoors in shady areas of the garden.

SHOP PARLOR PALMS

3

A Riot of Colors

Tim Shirey

For the Victorians, more was also more! “It was really about an explosion of colors,” says Harris. “Big, blowsy gardens overflowing with bold, bright colors showcased new plants.” There wasn’t just one type of plant used, but popular flowers included dahlias, roses, petunias, and especially geraniums. Cottage gardens, which combined flowers and edibles in an informal manner, also evolved toward the end of the Victorian age.

Plant this look: Instead of focusing on a specific, restrained color scheme, plant lots of different colors of flowers in containers and beds to bring a sense of unrestrained joy to your garden.

SHOP DAHLIAS

4

Bedding Plants

Cassidy Moody/ Missouri Botanical Garden

“Tightly-planted garden beds were laid out with lots of color and pattern,” says Rizzo. “There was a tight ‘pin-cushion’ planting with no bare ground visible. Typically, there were 2 to 3 species of flowers in the bed to form a geometric pattern. Basically, you’d cram in as many plants as possible to achieve a mosaic effect.” The technique also sometimes is referred to as carpet bedding because the design resembles a patterned rug.

Plant this look: Tightly plant a container for an instantly lush feel, or create small geometrically-shaped beds.

SHOP BEDDING PLANTS

5

Statuary, Sundials, Urns and Other Garden Structures

Victoria Pearson

While statues were part of earlier garden styles from Italy and France, the Victorian garden also featured statuary, sundials, obelisks, gazing balls, urns and ironwork of all sorts, says Harris. An ornate trellis, arbor or orangery, where citrus trees were protected from cold weather, also were part of many Victorian gardens.

Plant this look: Incorporate a few decorative pieces to punctuate your garden, such as a pair of urns, which do not necessarily need planted to add style.

SHOP GARDEN URNS

6

Decorative Metalwork

Jacky Parker Photography

Wrought iron became especially popular and was often used in fencing or decorative benches. On large estates, benches gave you a place to rest and admire the garden, says Rizzo.

Plant this look: A garden bench is always a wonderful way to stop and admire the views. Also, you can use pieces of salvaged iron fencing as accents or backdrops in planting beds if you don’t want to fence an entire area.

SHOP GARDEN BENCHES

7

Water Features

slobo

Estate homes would feature a large outdoor fountain, but a cottage garden might include a bird bath or two, says Harris.

Plant this look: Small wrought iron or concrete birdbaths offer a touch of Victoriana without requiring a garden overhaul.

SHOP BIRD BATHS

8

Aromatic Plants

Jacky Parker Photography

Victorian cottage garden style includes many different kinds of flowers and edibles, and the Victorians had a special love for aromatic plants such as lavender, rosemary, thyme and scented geraniums, says Elizabeth Fogel, senior horticulturalist at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia.

Add this look: Scented plants are never out of style because fragrance adds another layer of enjoyment to your garden. Plant them in containers, along the edges of hardscape to soften edges, and in beds in large swaths.

SHOP LAVENDER PLANTS

9

Rockery

Lara_Uhryn

Victorians created mini-habitats to showcase their newly discovered plants, such as alpine plants and ferns, says Harris. The idea was to mimic what you’d find in a natural setting on a stony cliff or mountainside.

Add this look: While you may not be able to transform your garden into a mini-mountainside, you can create a small rock garden with plants tucked among strategically and artistically placed rocks.

SHOP ROCK GARDEN PLANTS

Arricca Elin Sansone Arricca SanSone has written about health and lifestyle topics for Prevention, Country Living, Woman's Day, and more.

The 17 Most Beautiful Flowers You Can Grow

Our Sagittarius Floriscope

12 Inspiring Garden Shops Around the World

15 Low-Light Houseplants That Can Thrive Anywhere

Can Plants Actually Purify the Air in Your Home?

This Scorpio Floral Arrangement Embodies Fall

14 Night-Blooming Plants for Your Moon Garden

These Are the 6 Biggest Garden Trends for 2023

16 Gorgeous Houseplants to Grow

What to Plant in October

Victorian garden design: 5 key elements for your backyard

(Image credit: National Trust/ James Dobson)

The key elements of Victorian garden design can be incorporated into any modern garden. You can make them your own – whether you live in the country or city, or have a backyard large or small. 

Take inspiration from Victorian gardeners and incorporate some of their garden features into your garden ideas for your modern backyard.

Here National Trust gardeners advise on some of the key elements to include if you are planning a garden with a traditional appeal.

'Victorian garden design reflects the Victorians' love of plants, travel and innovation. These three enthusiasms combined to transform gardens in this period into spaces that celebrated 'new' plants from all over the world – in technicolor,' explains Rosie Fyles, head gardener at the National Trust .

'Indoor areas were transformed, too, as growing under glass became both more fashionable and more possible, thanks to the availability of cheaper glass,' she adds.

The end of the 19th century saw the rise in popularity of cottage gardens ideas, with their abundant flowering borders filled with wild self-seeders.

1. Include shaped beds full of colorful bedding plants

(Image credit: National Trust Images/ Mike Selby)

'Fuelled by exploration and plant breeding, and an increasing ability to source plants from retailers, the Victorian gardener had access to an ever-swelling array of "new" plants,' explains Rosie Fyles.

With improved and greater access to specialist bedding plant seeds, the ‘bedding plant boom’ reached even small suburban gardens – and characterizes English gardens today.

Victorian garden design reflected ways to display and showcase these plant finds. 

The fashion was for vibrant bedding plant displays in island beds centrally placed in lawns. This can be done on a small scale and you can have fun with the bed shapes as part of your flower bed ideas.

'These beds came in a variety of forms, most commonly a circle but also stars, crescents, hearts, butterflies and even tadpoles. Plants used included calceolarias – or pocketbook plants – lobelias, pelargoniums, petunias, verbenas and violas,' explains Rosie Fyles.

2. Build a Victorian style rockery

(Image credit: National Trust Images)

As the variety of plants brought back from expeditions to mountainous regions increased, Victorian garden design incorporated rock garden ideas.

'Victorian gardeners created a wide range of artificial landscapes, including rockeries that were designed to be naturalistic and were created for newly discovered ferns, alpine and rock plants that would not do as well elsewhere in the garden,' explains Rosie. 

There are two rockeries at Peckover House & Gardens that would provide inspiration for a home garden rockery. 

'We used any stonework that we could find, aiming to re-use and recycle. Stone and brick that tones in with the property works brilliantly. It doesn’t need to be large, but it does need to remind you of the shape and irregularity of a stony area you might find on a mountain or a seaside cliff,’ explains senior gardener Jenny Windsor.

When choosing plants for a rockery consider:

Creating a rockery in one area of the garden will add a different character to your outdoor space.

3. Grow exotic plants under glass

(Image credit: National Trust Images/ Carole Drake)

'The Victorians popularised the fashion for cultivating under glass exotic plants brought back by explorers and plant hunters,' explains Rosie Fyles.

While gardeners living in USDA hardiness zones 9 to 11 may be able to grow these exotics successfully in their gardens, If you live in a colder hardiness zone, you can still enjoy these warmth-loving plants, as the Victorians did, by growing them as part of your greenhouse ideas, in summerhouses or conservatories.

The conservatory at Wallington Garden in Northumberland is known for its fabulous, striking flower displays. 

Beth Orton, who looks after the conservatory, advises to do what the Victorians would have done and, ‘stuff your space and pack it full of colorful, vibrant plants. '

(Image credit: National Trust Images/ James Dobson)

To mimic the Victorians, include lots of rich, dark colours: burgundies, blues, yellows, shades of green, but no pinks or pastels.

‘We think about how to enjoy the glasshouse during the different seasons, and create impact where it can be seen,' Beth adds.

Beth advises to take advantage of what can be grown from seed, and include some of the following exotics:

4. Plant in a cottage garden style

(Image credit: National Trust Images/ Andrew Butler)

Victorians romanticized rural life and created cottage gardens full of abundant planting and a mass of colorful flowers

One of the key elements of a Victorian cottage garden is 'an abundance of cottage garden plants joyfully crammed together with the emphasis on flowers rather than foliage,' says Rosie Fyles.

Hardy’s Cottage , the evocative Dorset birthplace of author Thomas Hardy, is a prime example of a stereotypical cottage garden.

(Image credit: National Trust Images/ Chris Lacey)

Caps Browning Smith looks after the garden at Hardy’s Cottage. ‘Informal and dense planting is the key characteristic of a cottage garden. Plants jammed in together, jostling for light and spilling over the paths. Plants that have arrived as cuttings from neighbors and gifts from other gardens. There is no soil to be seen,’ she explains.

Allow plants to self-seed by 'happy accident' and self-colonize. 'Key plants for a cottage garden include foxgloves, fruit trees, hollyhocks, phlox, sedums, roses and Welsh poppies,' says Rosie Fyles. 'Choose those that are hardy, single-flowered, sweet scented and romantic,' she adds.

5. Include different types of pelargoniums – or tender geraniums

(Image credit: Hervé Lenain / Alamy Stock Photo )

'Victorians championed pelargoniums for their reliability and flower power, developing new cultivars and new ways of using them. Pelargonium-rich displays became essentials of Victorian life,' explains Rosie Fyles

'Try scented pelargoniums if you have some over-wintering space indoors. They work well outside through mid-spring to early fall,' she adds.

If you learn how to to overwinter geraniums it can also save you money and prolong the life of this favored flower of the Victorians.

At Peckover House & Gardens they propagate their collection of geraniums with cuttings and use them as foliage and flower-rich bedding. 

'Try including different types of pelargoniums in your garden, which you can propagate from each year. Use them in pots along a garden wall, or as a garden table centrepiece, for instance,' recommends Rosie.

 Her recommended pelargonium varieties to try include:

(Image credit: National Trust Images/ Clive Nichols)

What flowers were in Victorian gardens?

Favorite flowers that were used in Victorian gardens, advises Rosie Fyles, included:

(Image credit: National Trust Images/ James Dobson)

What does a victorian garden look like?

A Victorian garden looks like a space that showcases 'new' plants introduced in the Victorian era, explains Rosie Fyles. There was a return to a more formal garden style with garden beds and parterres filled with colorful and exotic species of plants.

Victorian gardens included:

Wilder and more natural gardens increased in popularity towards the end of the 1800s in a reaction against industrialization.

There are many National Trust gardens you can visit – in person or enjoy the galleries online – for inspiration of including Victorian garden design ideas in your own backyard.

Rachel is senior content editor, and writes and commissions gardening content for homesandgardens. com, Homes & Gardens magazine, and its sister titles Period Living Magazine and Country Homes & Interiors. She has written for lifestyle magazines for many years, with a particular focus on gardening, historic houses and arts and crafts, but started out her journalism career in BBC radio, where she enjoyed reporting on and writing programme scripts for all manner of stories. Rachel then moved into regional lifestyle magazines, where the topics she wrote about, and people she interviewed, were as varied and eclectic as they were on radio. Always harboring a passion for homes and gardens, she jumped at the opportunity to work on The English Home and The English Garden magazines for a number of years, before joining the Period Living team, then the wider Homes & Gardens team, specializing in gardens.

Victorian Lots & Gardens - Top 135 Photos, Lot, Garden & Garden Landscaping

1870 Vintage Victorian

Schmechtig Landscapes

Request Free Quote The level of trim detail and color on this Victorian home accentuates and echoes the home's accents throughout the landscape. Mauve colored bricks, grayish natural stone pavers and gray & pink boulders were selected to marry the landscape features of the house. A selection of tumbled clay bricks and reclaimed bluestone were used for the front walk, foyer space, driveway, patio, pond & waterfall, adding an aged look to the property. In order to maintain a historic appearance to the site, great emphasis was placed on the preservation and care of two majestic Horsechestnut trees, three flowering Crabs and several mature groupings of Yews. There are a series of paths and sweeping panels of lawn installed to create inviting linkages through various spaces. Lastly, the crown jewel of the property is the waterfall, pond and its cottage garden plantings, which throughout the season provide a whimsical garden, with ever-changing sights and sounds.

Unique Gardens

Rosborough Partners Inc.

Casual and elegant, this English garden culminates in the perfect thoughtful spot. (Photo by RStarovich)
Stylish Design: Summer Lot and Medium Victorian Garden with Midday Shade - Latest Trend

Leadlight Projects

Leadlight Originals

A lovely example of retaining your view and having the most beautiful leadlight to adorn it. This is only part of the story. There is another leadlight below not visible and in this conservatory there were 7 matching arches.

Shingle Style Landscape Renovation

User

The raised yard is separated from the terrace area with a rugged fieldstone wall and stone steps. A Leonard
Pictured: Huge lot and Victorian backyard garden with lawn border

Upstate Manor

Meyer & Meyer, Inc. Architecture and Interiors

This home, set prominently on Lake Skaneateles in New York, reflects a period when stately mansions graced the waterfront. Few houses demonstrate the skill of modern-day craftsmen with such charm and grace. The investment of quality materials such as limestone, carved timbers, copper, and slate, combined with stone foundations and triple-pane windows, provide the new owners worry with-free maintenance and peace of mind for years to come. The property boasts formal English gardens complete with a rope swing, pergola, and gazebo as well as an underground tunnel with a wine grotto. Elegant terraces offer multiple views of the grounds.

Remodeled Queen Anne

The Lazy Gardener

A refurbished Queen Anne needed privacy from a busy street corner while not feeling like it was behind a privacy hedge. A mixed use of evergreen trees and shrubs, deciduous plants and perennials give a warm cottage feel while creating the privacy the garden needed from the street.

Coastal NJ Residence

Sudbury Design Group

Fred Forbes Photogroupe
Pictured: large lot and Victorian front yard garden with driveway and paving

Pomello Residence

HartmanBaldwin Design/Build

In keeping with the estate’s traditional English Tudor style 10,000 sq. ft. of gardens were designed. The English Gardens are characterized by regular, geometric planting patterns and pathways, with antique decorative accessories heightening their old-world feel. Special nooks and hideaways, coupled with the sound of cascading water in fountains, create a serene environment, while delicate lighting in planter boxes makes the garden perfect for early evening strolls.

E5 Courtyard

Sarah Kay Garden Design

An Acer 'Red Emporer' provides a striking focal point throughout Summer into Autumn
Design ideas for a small summer allotment and Victorian backyard garden with high beds, afternoon shade, stone paving and wooden fence

City road Courtyard Garden Revamp

Taryn Ferris Gardens, Horticulture And Design

This intimate space invites you in, with three arched frame mirrors creating the illusion of a space much larger. The evergreen Trachelospermum jasminoides works to hide the high brick walls creating intimacy and the fragrance in the early evening adds to the feeling of an exotic hanging garden.

Willow Glen Driveway turns Lush

Just in Thyme Landscape Design

Wisteria & Honeysuckle vines have grown over the years and the sitting area moved to the back of the house.
Original Design Example: Small Lot and Victorian Garden

Victorian Terrace Garden: Winslow, Bucks.

Peter Reader Landscapes

The view from the house reveals a Victorian tiled patio and a stepping stone path enticing you out into the garden.
Pictured: Victorian Backyard Lot and Medium Size Garden

The Romance of Victorian Gardens

The exquisite classics of Victorian English gardens have always attracted gardeners and landscapers for their romance, sophistication and harmony.

Victorian garden style has many faces, it goes well with a variety of architectural solutions, from ancient to modern buildings, so it can come in handy in many home gardens and summer cottages. So, it is worth talking about it in more detail.

Historical touches

The beginning of the formation of the Victorian garden style is considered to be the 40-50s of the XIX century. It became a kind of counterbalance to the mass and chaotic planting of exotic plants in the private gardens of wealthy Englishmen, which was fashionable at that time. Tastelessly planted private areas needed ordering. At the same time, public gardens were massively created in England - public walking areas with their own vegetative aesthetics.

The British landscape designer Gertrude Jekyll and the Irish gardener and journalist William Robinson are considered to be the founders and promoters of the style. Their assets include not only developed and implemented landscape projects, among which there are pearls of world gardening, but also books on gardening that are still popular today.

Features of the Victorian garden style

The Victorian garden is a compromise between regular and landscape style. At the same time, certain design elements are not inherited, but are transformed, acquiring individuality.

The compositional center of Victorian garden is a house, a cottage, an estate. The landscape design of the adjacent territory is formed in accordance with the architecture and location of the main building.

From the point of view of planning such gardens are divided by strict and clear lines into sections - "pictures", "green rooms", separated by low hedges. Transitions from one landscape solution to another do not destroy the whole picture of the garden, but leave a feeling of freedom and spaciousness.

Victorian style garden rich in small architecture . Pergolas, porticos, fountains, landscape furniture, statues, massive stone flowerpots on pedestals and other elements are appropriate here. All this is made of carefully crafted materials and serves as evidence of the compositions man-made. The significance of such objects is emphasized by the fact that the vegetation does not come close to them - it is separated by paths, platforms, decorative dumps.

Walkways in Victorian landscapes are typically paved with medium-sized slabs of unobtrusive concrete or natural stone in the same shade as the house. For the most part, this concerns the central exposition of the garden. Paths in remote parts of the garden can be decorated with fine gravel in natural tones. The boundary between paths and other landscape objects (lawns, flower beds) should be clear.

The decor of Victorian gardens is original, varied, sometimes whimsical. So, classic Victorian gardens were decorated with birdbaths and drinking bowls, sundials. Antique garden mirrors, stylized lamps and much more can also find a place in such a landscape. Modern decor should not be used in such gardens, it is important that it be stylistically designed in the spirit of the Victorian era.

Victorian Garden Vegetation

The range of plants for a Victorian landscape is extremely varied. It may well find a place for specimens of exotic origin, but there should not be many of them. In the summer design of the garden, they may be present in the form of tub plants.

Lawns are an indispensable element of the Victorian garden. They can be quite extensive if the territory allows, and miniature if the garden is small. Hedges are also an indispensable component of the Victorian style in the garden. To simplify their care, it is better to choose undersized plants. As for large-sized trees, they are planted mainly along the edges of the garden, leaving the bulk of the space unshaded.

For the most part, Victorian garden plants must be adapted to the local climate, and decorative varietal hybrids will be very useful here. Delphiniums, ferns, chrysanthemums, alyssums, lilies, tulips and many, many other species with decorative flowers or foliage are appropriate here.

Learn more