Victorian-core

Glasshouse goals at Oxford Botanic Garden

I read a thing the other day about how Bridgerton has fuelled a trend for Regency and Victorian-inspired style and I had one of those lightbulb moments: I am a New Victorian. Always have been. But I think because the mid-century aesthetic has been around for so long, I’ve been in denial.

Well now I’m embracing it. This revelation has come hot on the heels of a visit to Oxford’s Botanic Gardens and all the pieces are clicking into place. When we designed the garden I couldn’t quite pin down the overarching theme - it was sort of cottage-gardeny, but then also a bit industrial; wild but also slightly contrived. Now I see that what I had in my head was a modern take on Victorian gardens. Not the highly manicured, high-maintenance stately home ones but the more fairy-tale, overgrown, romantic ones. l am crazy for botanical gardens with their hot houses and pineapple pits and exotic plant specimens, and that was the vibe I was trying to recreate.

That’s why I wanted the Alitex greenhouse and its thin, dark lines; the vintage red brick wall; the rusted Corten planters; the cobbled paving with moss and self-seeded Erigeron growing in the cracks; the the vintage terracotta pots and the ferns. I love it when tomato vines take over the greenhouse in late summer, and when the nasturtiums go crazy and spill out over the raised beds. I suppose it’s kind of gothic in a way, which was not a new aesthetic when the Victorians adopted it. And now I feel like its time has come again, as these things often do.

Bye bye mid-century, I was never really fully on-board with you. I’m toasting your demise with my tiny Victorian sherry glass.

A pineapple pit

Hostas, ferns and terracotta - none more Victorian