Interwar Gardens

Quiet Revolutions: Garden Design in the Interwar Era

The Interwar Years (1918–1939) marked a pivotal shift in garden design, as landscapes responded to both personal grief and broader cultural transformation.

Garden History, Public Parks, Urban Green Space, Women in Garden History

Informal, Urban Garden, Vegetable Garden

Interwar

Britain

20th Century

The Interwar Garden

Between the devastation of World War I and the upheaval of World War II, British gardens became sanctuaries of solace, self-expression, and social change.

The Interwar Years (1918–1939) marked a pivotal shift in garden design, as landscapes responded to both personal grief and broader cultural transformation.

In the wake of WWI, gardens took on a therapeutic role. Many families created memorial spaces at home – quiet corners planted with roses, poppies, and yew to honour lost loved ones. Public parks and commemorative gardens also emerged, blending horticulture with remembrance. This emotional resonance shaped design choices, favouring intimate, enclosed spaces over previous grand Victorian formality.

Eton schoolboys digging potatoes from a victory garden during WW1. Image: Horace Nicholls, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dig for Victory by artist Peter Fraser. The National Archives, INF3/96. Public Domain via Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19556421

Arts and Crafts meets Modernism

At the same time, the Arts and Crafts movement continued to influence garden aesthetics.

Designers like Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens continued championing harmony between house and garden, using native plants, natural materials, and informal layouts. Herbaceous borders, clipped hedges, and cottage-style planting became hallmarks of this period, reflecting a nostalgic yearning for pre-industrial simplicity.

Yet the Interwar Years were not solely defined by tradition. Modernism began to take root, especially in urban settings. Influenced by continental design and Bauhaus principles, some gardens embraced geometric lines, abstract forms, and new materials like concrete and steel. These spaces reflected a forward-looking optimism, even as political tensions simmered.

Gardens of Domestic Pride

Social change also shaped garden use. With more women entering public life and suburban housing expanding, gardens became sites of domestic pride and leisure.

Magazines like ‘The Garden’ and ‘Home & Garden’ offered practical advice, while nurseries and seed catalogues made exotic plants more accessible. Hydrangeas, hostas, and Japanese maples gained popularity, adding colour and texture to modest plots.

By the late 1930s, as war loomed again, gardens shifted toward utility. The groundwork was laid for the “Dig for Victory” campaign, with vegetable beds and fruit trees quietly replacing ornamental borders. But even then, the Interwar garden remained a space of beauty, memory, and quiet resistance – a testament to the enduring power of cultivated land in uncertain times.

Garden History, Public Parks, Urban Green Space, Women in Garden History

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