Women Who Shaped Garden History
Surrey, England. Gertrude Jekyll's own garden, where she developed and refined the planting ideas that would influence garden design for more than a century. The house was designed for her by Edwin Lutyens.
Jekyll acquired the 15-acre site at Munstead in 1883 and spent the next decades creating a garden that served as both a personal retreat and a working laboratory for her planting experiments. She trialed plants extensively, testing color combinations, growth habits, and seasonal effects before recommending them to clients. The garden included herbaceous borders, a spring garden, a nut walk, woodland plantings, and a main border that ran for 200 feet.
Jekyll's main herbaceous border at Munstead Wood was her most famous creation at home. Arranged according to her color theories — cool colors at the ends, warming to hot oranges and reds in the center — it demonstrated the painterly approach to planting that became her signature. Every plant was chosen not just for its flower color but for its foliage texture, growth habit, and seasonal contribution.
The house at Munstead Wood, designed by Lutyens and completed in 1897, was one of the earliest and most important examples of the integration of house and garden that characterized their partnership. Jekyll and Lutyens worked together to ensure that the transition from interior to exterior was seamless, with views, pathways, and planting designed as part of a unified whole.
Munstead Wood is now in private ownership and is not regularly open to the public, though it has been the subject of several restoration efforts and publications. Jekyll's influence, however, is visible in gardens around the world.