GERTRUDE JEKYLL was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer, and artist. She is best known as a landscape designer who revolutionized gardening. Born in 1843, she trained as a painter, but when her eyesight started to fail she turned to gardening. It was her training with color and texture that informed her garden designs.
Miss Jekyll was the first to use long borders with color, rather than block-shaped designs with little flow. She believed in plantings that bloomed throughout a season, rather than only one point in time. She incorporated natural landscape into garden designs. Sounds simple now, but during her time was revolutionary. Revolutionary enough she was the first woman to be awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour of the Royal Horticulture Society (1897), the highest award for British horticulturists.
During her life she: designed over 400 gardens throughout the U.K., America, and Europe; wrote fourteen books; contributed over one-thousand magazine articles; and was one-half of the most influential, historical partnerships in the Arts & Crafts Movement with English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. I appreciate that she also was a blacksmith and, on one occasion, shot seed from a shotgun to get plantings in a hard-to-reach-location. She not only designed, but also collected and cultivated seeds, creating hybrids to meet her needs.
Gertrude Jekyll died in 1932, but her legacy in garden designs continues to this day. The next time you plant your border or plan your garden for season-long blooms, thank Miss Jekyll.
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