"Howard Haigh" wrote
I'm asking this on behalf of a friend who is engaged in an art project and
she would like to know what plants would have appeared in Victorian public
parks - well actually in one particular public park (Peel Park in Salford,
opened in 1846). From what I can see the Victorians were keen on colourful
borders but some of you out there might know a lot more and could name a
few
plants.

The best clue to what grew there originally is probably taken from the
existing trees of the right age , but I'd be fairly sure that the Victorian
style of the time for this garden was probably what is known as the
"Gardenesque" Style. It seems to me that it was the most favoured style for
public parks of that era around the world for those who wanted to be "up to
the minute".

The main features of this style as far as I can remember it was the use of
exotic trees - less emphasis on bedding on more on trees and paths and
features such as grottos and water features. Don't quote me on this but I'm
trying to remember the many Public gardens, cemeteries (a good source for
this style) and botanic gardens I've been in which were made at that time
and which have been little chaged in the intervening time - most of this
have been in Australia. Some interesting trees such as Araucarias featured
along with more common stuff like camphor laurels and cyprsses. They also
featured structures for sitting in and viewing the surrounds.

It may sound silly but Australia has many gardens etc which were made at
that time and many of them have survived intact in terms of the tree
planting if not the finer features like the curvy paths, fountains and
island beds. One other thing that also applied in Australia at that time was
the desire to be up with the rest of the world at a boom time here and the
parks and gardens were built but over time were left to their own devices by
simple neglect and they stayed that way until they began to be appreciated
in the latter part of the 20th century so they were seldom changed or
encrouched upon because there was no population pressures to take over the
desirable land and because our European history is so short in comparison to
the UK these gardens are now Heritage listed and protected, looked after
well and much written about.

I do remember that Loudon was one of the names associated with Gardenesque
styling but beyond that I can recall nothing about him.

The following cites may help your friend (or not as the case may be):
One superb gardenesque (and Edwardian) design is at a place called Rookwood
Necropolis which is the largest cemetery in the Southern Hemisphere ( a mere
700 acres):
http://www.strathfieldhistory.org.au/Rookwood.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1358888.htm

This site seems to be very useful if the park was in the Gardenesque style:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:...nk&cd=38&gl=au