Gertrude Jekyll
Who was Gertrude Jekyll?
Garden designer, artist, editor (1843-1932)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Gertrude Jekyll (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Gertrude Jekyll (29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British horticulturist, garden designer, artist, photographer, and writer who changed the look of garden design in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Born in London into a middle-class family, she spent much of her adult life in Surrey, developing gardens and ideas that gained her international fame. Throughout her long career, she created more than 400 gardens in the UK, Europe, and the US, and wrote over 1,000 articles for publications like Country Life and William Robinson's journal The Garden.
Jekyll initially trained as an artist and was greatly influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, especially through her friendship with artist and theorist John Ruskin and designer William Morris. Her artistic eye shaped her approach to planting design, where she used color, texture, and form as carefully as a painter uses a canvas. She became known for her sweeping herbaceous borders arranged in gradual color schemes, moving from cool tones to warm and back again. This method was based on her study of color theory and her fine arts training.
A significant collaboration developed between Jekyll and architect Edwin Lutyens after they met in 1889. Together, they worked on many country house projects, with Lutyens designing the garden's structure and Jekyll creating the planting plans. Their blend of structured architectural layouts and natural, vibrant planting set a standard that shaped garden design for generations. Their work produced some of the most celebrated gardens of the Edwardian era.
Jekyll was also a prolific author. Her books, like Wood and Garden (1899), Home and Garden (1900), and Colour in the Flower Garden (1908), shared her gardening ideas with a wide audience and remain key texts in garden literature. She received the Victoria Medal of Honour from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897, one of the earliest people to do so, and was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal in 1928. She continued working into old age despite worsening eyesight, relying more on her deep plant knowledge and her strong memory for color and form. She died in Surrey on 8 December 1932 at the age of eighty-nine.
Before Fame
Gertrude Jekyll, born on November 29, 1843, in London, was the fifth of seven children in a well-off family that appreciated culture and the arts. She spent her childhood partly in Surrey, a place she was connected to throughout her life. She displayed a strong talent for drawing and crafts from a young age and went on to study painting, drawing, and decorative arts at the South Kensington School of Art in London during the 1860s. She traveled widely in Europe, spending significant time in Italy and Greece, where she took in the classical and Renaissance art and architecture.
Initially, she aimed to focus on painting and crafts, working in embroidery, metalwork, and interior decoration. However, as her eyesight worsened in the 1880s, she turned her focus to gardening. This change proved significant. At Munstead Wood, her Surrey home designed with Edwin Lutyens, she created an experimental garden that became both her workshop and her residence. Her visual arts background gave her a unique perspective on planting, and her connections with key figures of the Arts and Crafts movement provided an intellectual basis that distinguished her from typical Victorian gardeners.
Key Achievements
- Designed more than 400 gardens across the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States
- Authored over 1,000 articles for horticultural publications and wrote more than a dozen influential books on garden design
- Received the Victoria Medal of Honour from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897, among its first recipients
- Awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal in 1928 for outstanding contributions to horticulture
- Pioneered the use of colour-graded herbaceous borders, establishing a planting philosophy that fundamentally shaped twentieth-century garden design
Did You Know?
- 01.Jekyll's eyesight deteriorated so severely from myopia that she relied largely on touch and smell to identify plants in her later years, yet she continued producing detailed planting plans into old age.
- 02.She was among the first women to receive the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour, awarded in the medal's inaugural year of 1897.
- 03.Jekyll was an accomplished photographer and used her photographs of cottage gardens and plant specimens as references for her design and writing work.
- 04.Her collaboration with architect Edwin Lutyens spanned more than two decades and produced notable projects including Hestercombe Gardens in Somerset, which combined formal stone terracing with her signature naturalistic planting.
- 05.Despite never formally training as a horticulturist, Jekyll corresponded with leading botanists and plant collectors of her era and was instrumental in popularising many plant varieties not yet in widespread garden use.
Family & Personal Life
Awards & Honors
| Award | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Veitch Memorial Medal | 1928 | — |
| Victoria Medal of Honour | 1897 | — |
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