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9 Victorian Garden Design Ideas

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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.

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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.

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Victorian Garden

One of the most important periods in the history of England is the Victorian era, which approximately lasted from the middle of the 19th century to 1910, and is associated with the reign of Queen Victoria. This period had, rather, not one common order or style, but, on the contrary, was characterized by the rapid development of all spheres of life, many discoveries and innovations.

The gardens of England of the Victorian era were no longer exclusively landscape, on the contrary, the composition became more hermetic, verified, ordered. Neo-Gothic dominated in architecture. Although it was possible to meet other styles with pronounced eclecticism, neo-Gothic buildings and entire neighborhoods survived not only in England, but also in its many former colonies.

The center of the garden was a house located in an open space. It was believed that thickets and humid air are very harmful to buildings and people's health.

The house, located in the center, was surrounded by flower beds, which should have been visible from the windows and a clearing with a well-groomed lawn, inscribed in regular geometric shapes. Even ponds led to the correct shape of a rectangle, circle, square. And in these clearly defined frames, bright lush vegetation was located. This gave a special contrast to the composition of the garden, a sort of ordered mess.

The paths were covered with gravel or terracotta paving, in harmony with climbing facades. Doors and windows with single glass were generally quite austere, without unnecessary intricate details. And the external sign of wealth was exotic plants.

Plants from all over the world came to England, after which their mass acclimatization and systematization began. Some species became possible to grow directly in the garden, others were planted in greenhouses, greenhouses.

Bulbs and annuals, especially begonias, were most often grown in the small flower beds around the house. At some distance, more voluminous compositions were planted using azalea, barberry, forsythia, hydrangea, lilac, rose, dahlia, rhododendron, spirea, wolfberry, holly, chaenomelis. Eclecticism was traced not only in architecture but also in gardens, there were many experiments, various techniques and elements were mixed, ranging from the techniques of Italian, Japanese and Chinese gardens to German garden gnomes, which became very popular. Such exotic plants as fan maple, peonies, chrysanthemums, cherries were in great demand.

Yes, in addition to bright plant compositions, the garden was necessarily supplemented with decorative elements and small architectural forms: benches, vases, gazebos, garden sculptures, doll houses were created in the garden.

The Victorian garden was very diverse; It was created not only for admiring, but also for active use, games, relaxation, tea drinking, receiving guests and holidays. Behind the outward naturalness and deceptive simplicity, there was a composition thought out to the details and colossal work, but this is what created the unique image of the gardens of Victorian England.

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