Women Who Shaped Garden History
Gertrude Jekyll is widely regarded as the most influential garden designer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An artist by training, she brought a painter's understanding of color, texture, and form to the garden, developing the herbaceous border as an art form and designing or contributing to over 400 gardens.
Jekyll was born into a prosperous family in London and trained at the Kensington School of Art. She was deeply influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, particularly by the ideas of John Ruskin and William Morris, which emphasized handcraft, beauty in daily life, and the integration of art and nature. She began her career as an artist and craftsperson, working in embroidery, metalwork, and other decorative arts, but deteriorating eyesight in her forties led her to shift her creative energy to gardens.
Jekyll's great innovation was the application of color theory to planting. She arranged plants in borders with the same attention to color relationships that a painter would bring to a canvas, using long drifts of color that blended and contrasted through the seasons. Her signature herbaceous borders at Munstead Wood, her home in Surrey, became the model for a style that dominated English garden design for a century.
Her approach was not just aesthetic but practical. She understood soil, light, and the growth habits of plants, and her designs were based on deep horticultural knowledge. She trialed plants extensively in her own garden before recommending them to clients, and her planting plans were detailed and precise.
Jekyll's most famous professional relationship was with the architect Edwin Lutyens. The two met in 1889 when Lutyens was a young, unknown architect and Jekyll was already an established figure. Their collaboration — Lutyens designed the hard landscaping and structures, Jekyll designed the planting — produced some of the finest gardens of the Edwardian era. Lutyens designed Jekyll's own house at Munstead Wood, and their partnership continued for decades.
Jekyll was a prolific author. Her 15 books include Wood and Garden (1899), Home and Garden (1900), and Colour in the Flower Garden (1908), all of which combined practical advice with philosophical reflection on the art of gardening. She also contributed extensively to Country Life and other periodicals. Her writing is characterized by close observation, strong opinions, and a graceful prose style.
Jekyll's influence on garden design is difficult to overstate. The herbaceous border, the cottage garden aesthetic, the idea of the garden as an extension of the house, and the principle of designing with color and texture all owe something to her work. Many of her garden designs have been restored, and her books remain in print. She demonstrated that garden design was a creative discipline of the highest order, and she opened the way for every woman who followed her into the field.