The Book of Town & Window Gardening — Edition Insights

A Practical Guide Rooted in London Streets

The opening chapters establish a clear sequence for the town gardener: start with spring bulbs in window-boxes, then move to summer displays. Bardswell warns against starting summer flowers too soon and against buying forced plants. She recommends Asparagus Sprengeri and suggests a kitchen window-box of herbs. The advice is specific—she tells readers how to choose, make, place, and fill a window-box, and how to water and cleanse it. But she also steps back to consider the man in the street, arguing that foliage plants have “advantages and merits” for the passerby. The book is as much about the public face of gardening as the private pleasure.

Fog, Smoke, and the Struggle for Growth

Chapter IX, “Fog, Flowers, and Foliage,” confronts the central challenge of urban gardening: polluted air. Bardswell analyzes what “urban fog is made of”—darkness and poison—and cites an analysis from Kew. She asks, “Can we counteract effects of fog?” and reports on Mr. Toope at Stepney, who used fog-filters. Professor Oliver’s report on ferns in fogs is noted, and bulbous plants are recommended as more resilient. The chapter ends with a nod to the Coal-smoke Abatement Society and its resolutions. This is not generic advice; it is a specific response to the sooty air of early twentieth-century London.

Floral Trophies and the Flower-Girl’s Lot

In a striking departure from horticulture, Chapter X examines the flower trade and floral fashion. Bardswell deplores “flower hearts and harps and crowns” made by stripping violets from their stalks and stringing them on wire. She contrasts the stiff bouquets of the mid-Victorian era—circles of tightly packed blossoms—with the more natural trailing posy. The street flower-girl is sketched with sympathy: “all boot and little shawl and wilted feathers,” as Henley wrote. Bardswell watches the making of buttonholes—two ivy leaves wired together, then a cluster of violets—and notes the “death-throes” of maidenhair fern mingled with cheap tobacco smoke. Yet she affirms that “the love of flowers is such a good thing.”

Suburban Gardens and Neighborly Codes

The later chapters turn to the small suburban garden, which Bardswell defends with “a good word for it.” She discusses the motor-car, corner houses, and the importance of turf, trees, and individuality. A parenthetical chapter on “Next Door” addresses garden etiquette in Suburbia—codes and customs that govern neighborly relations. The book closes with a return to the practical: a list of plants for the city poor, inspired by the Window-box Society at St. Cuthbert’s Lodge, Millwall, and by Mr. Cadbury’s work with his operatives. Bardswell’s vision is inclusive, urging that even the poorest can find joy in a window-box.

Bardswell’s book is best read as a period piece that combines hands-on gardening advice with a keen eye for social detail. The excerpts reveal a writer who knows the soot on the windowsill and the price of violets. Readers interested in Edwardian urban life will find as much to savor as those seeking practical tips. The book rewards a slow reading, letting the observations on fog, flower-girls, and suburban etiquette sink in alongside the instructions for planting bulbs.

Reading about Bardswell’s window-boxes, I remembered my grandmother’s tiny balcony, crowded with tomato plants that never quite ripened. That same patient, hopeful feeling returned with A-B-C of Vegetable Gardening — Key Ideas to Explore, where the earth’s slow rhythm felt like a quiet friend. Both books whisper that small spaces hold enough for longing.