William Robinson (gardener)

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William Robinson (1838 - 1935) was a practical gardener and journalist whose ideas about "wild gardens" spurred the movement that is still recognized as the "English cottage garden," an outgrowth of the British Arts and Crafts movement.

He advocated planting wild flowers to look wild and reacted against the High Victorian patterned gardening, using tropical materials grown in greenhouses and planted out, though he was not averse to discreetly using some half-hardy plant materials. His garden style can be seen today at Gravetye Manor, West Sussex, England, though it is more manicured than it was in Robinson's time..

Robinson left his native Ireland in 1861 to take up a job at the Botanical Gardens of Regents Park, London, and then worked for the leading horticultural firm of Veitch. He became a fellow of the Linnean Society at the age of 29 and a successful gardening correspondent of The Times. He wrote many books, including two particularly influential ones, The Wild Garden (1870), which made his reputation, so that he was able to start his magazine The Garden in 1871, and The English Flower Garden, 1883, which he revised in edition after edition; his lifelong friend Gertrude Jekyll contributed some sections. She later edited The Garden for a couple of years and contributed many articles to his publications, which also included Gardening Illustrated (from 1879).

The first meeting between him and Gertrude Jekyll was in 1875; they were in accord in their design principles and maintained a close friendship and professional association for over 50 years. He helped her on her garden at Munstead Wood; she provided plants for his garden at Gravetye Manor, an Elizabethan house on a large property which he was able to acquire in 1884 from the profits of his writings and garden design work. Its gardens have been restored in its current role as a hotel and restaurant.