Something I've been researching lately is the concept of Arts and Crafts gardens. It's a movement that originated in the late 19th Century, as Victorian garden norms started to become overturned. It was the start of a new approach to gardening – something more relaxed, naturalistic, with a shifted view of how we use our outdoor space.
I had the privilege of recently visiting one of the historic gardens to have deeply influenced arts and crafts garden design: Gravetye Manor in Sussex, England. Here, horticulturalist William Robinson founded principles of wild gardening and created a garden entirely different to the formal, rigid plantings of the Victorian era. His ideas and experimentation at Gravetye Manor inspired the likes of Gertrude Jekyll, a driving force behind the Arts and Crafts gardens movement.
