Flora Domestica : Or the Portable Flower-Garden

Elizabeth Kent (1790-1861) lived in London, but wanted to live in the country. Dismayed at the number of pot-plants given to her which failed to thrive, she published this useful guide to container or ‘portable’ gardening in 1823. She had taught herself botany and foreign languages, and her sister’s marriage to the radical poet and journalist Leigh Hunt brought her into contact with the Romantic circles.

The book combines practical instruction on how to select plants which will thrive in containers, and in the polluted air of cities, with quotations on gardening and flowers from ancient as well as modern authors such as Keats and her friend Shelley. Her common-sense advice on plants from adonis to zygophyllum and on their care – use rainwater if possible, but never overwater or let pots stand in water, for example – is equally valid today.