Gertrude Jekyll 127
Her recommendations and experimentations became such a major part of her
work at Munstead that she established a nursery, which she promoted to her read-
ers. Indeed, in a letter to one of her clients she became her own advertising agent: ‘I
have a splendid list of good hardy plants, and bigger plants and at lower prices than
the nurseries.’^57 Jekyll continued to sell plants from the nursery for thirty-fi ve years
until her death in 1932. According to Michael Tooley, ‘the success of the nurs-
ery side of Miss Jekyll’s business required a knowledge of plants, particularly their
cultural needs, and a ready outlet’ for them, all of which she was able to provide
through a lifetime of horticultural experience, sensitivity to her clients, readers and
contemporary horticultural trends, and a thriving garden design business.^58
Th e nursery was also where Jekyll propagated her own variations of plants.
Some were brought back from her travels to the Continent and she experi-
mented with them to adapt their needs to the British climate and soil. Many
plants still exist today and are named either for Munstead or for Jekyll herself.
Th e nursery sold plants and seeds, some to clients whose gardens she was design-
ing , and some to seed distributors, including the French company, Vilmorin,
and the English Carter’s Tested Seeds.^59
In an article from 1890 entitled ‘A Useful White Primrose’, Jekyll responds to
another author who wrote an article in the previous week speaking of the ‘want
of a good white single Primrose’. She declares that she has cultivated just such a
plant at Munstead:
Such a form occurred here some years ago among some seedlings and proves so early,
free, and long-enduring, that I took pains to increase it, and now have good breadth
of a plant that has every merit for spring gardening.She continues the advertisement by declaring the availability of the plant to her
readers: ‘I should be happy to send a plant or two by post to a limited number of
amateurs (say thirty earliest applicants) who would send me an addressed label
to tie on’.^60 Here she emphasizes amateurs, perhaps as a subtle indication that she
was not intending to off er plants to her professional peers or competitors. It is not
entirely clear if Jekyll required payment for the primroses or if she off ered them
freely to promote her plant nursery and the success of this particular primrose.
By 1890, her nursery would have likely been fully operational. One year aft er this
article, the Munstead Early White Primrose, likely the same primrose Jekyll rec-
ommended to her readers, was exhibited at the National Auricular and Primrose
Society meeting.^61 Her nursery became essential for her career by providing plants
for her garden designs, off ering her an additional income through the sale of the
plants and increasing her recognition for varietal development both within her
readership and in the national societies where she exhibited them.
Jekyll’s designs, hybridization experiments and daily garden tasks at Munstead
Wood were the primary source of inspiration for her writing. Barbara T. Gates