The 20th Century

In his journey through time, Monty has reached the twentieth century. In a combination of industrialization and urbanization, what happened with British gardens was that they were being used as oases from the proverbial smoke and concrete of cities. While technology allowed the cultivation of a diversity of plants, including non-native ones, the focus on the botanical nature of the plants themselves in the nineteenth century gave way to the plants as a means of design, especially in the use of color, as gardens were treated as canvasses, often gardens designed as tableaux to present different pictures from a number of vantage points. Arguably, two items affected the development of the British garden the most during this century. The first is upheaval in the form of the two world wars, and the dispensation of the allotment gardens which were designed to be more utilitarian in the times of need than aesthetic. The second is the onset of the television age. While the allotment gardens brought gardening to the masses, most specifically the urban middle class, television showed them what they could do with their gardens.