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41-542: Founded in 1841 by the horticulturists Joseph Paxton , Charles Wentworth Dilke , John Lindley and the printer William Bradbury it originally took the form of a traditional newspaper, with both national and foreign news, but also with vast amounts of material sent in by gardeners and scientists, covering every conceivable aspect of gardening. Its first editor, John Lindley, was one of the founders. Another founder, Paxton, later also became editor. Prominent contributors included Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker . By 1851,

82-429: A V shape. Any other buds are rubbed away. Removing the vertical stem completes the individual V-shaped espalier. By placing many similarly trained trees in a line two feet apart with their branches trained to the same plane, a Belgian fence is created. The Belgian fence is an intermediary form that can then be used to train onward to many other forms of espalier, including: Step-over, where the branches are lowered down to

123-582: A central carriageway and when the Queen was driven through, it was lit with twelve thousand lamps. It was prohibitively expensive to maintain, and was not heated during the First World War. The plants died and it was demolished in the 1920s. In 1848 Paxton created the Conservative Wall , a glass house 331 ft (101 m) long by 7 ft (2.1 m) wide. The Great Conservatory was the test-bed for

164-409: A friendly relationship with his employer who recognised his diverse talents and facilitated his rise to prominence. One of Paxton's first projects was to redesign the garden around the new north wing of the house and expand Chatsworth's collection of conifers into a 40-acre (160,000 m ) arboretum which still exists. He became skilled at moving mature trees. The largest, weighing about eight tons,

205-665: A monthly magazine, The Horticultural Register . This was followed by the Magazine of Botany in 1834, the Pocket Botanical Dictionary in 1840, Paxton's Flower Garden (vols. I & II) in 1850 and the Calendar of Gardening Operations . In addition to these titles he also, in 1841, co-founded perhaps the most famous horticultural periodical, The Gardeners' Chronicle along with John Lindley , Charles Wentworth Dilke and William Bradbury , and later became its editor. Paxton

246-468: A position in 1823 at the Horticultural Society's Chiswick Gardens. The Horticultural Society's gardens were close to the gardens of William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire , at Chiswick House . The duke met the young gardener as he strolled in his gardens and became impressed with his skill and enthusiasm. He offered the 20-year-old Paxton the position of head gardener at Chatsworth , which

287-673: A roadway, an atmospheric railway , housing and shops. Although he remained the Head Gardener at Chatsworth until 1858, Paxton was also able to undertake outside work such as the Crystal Palace and his directorship of the Midland Railway. He worked on public parks in Liverpool , Birkenhead , Glasgow , Halifax (the People's Park ) and the grounds of The Spa, Scarborough . In October 1845 he

328-438: A series of buildings with "forcing frames" for espalier trees and for the cultivation of exotic plants such as highly prized pineapples. At the time the use of glass houses was in its infancy and those at Chatsworth were dilapidated. After experimentation, he designed a glass house with a ridge and furrow roof that would be at right angles to the morning and evening sun and an ingenious frame design that would admit maximum light:

369-581: A sheet of blotting paper . At the end of the meeting he held up his first sketch of the Crystal Palace, inspired by the Victoria Regia House. The sketch is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum . He completed the plans and presented them to the Commission, but there was opposition from some members, since another design was well into its planning stage. Paxton decided to by-pass the Commission and published

410-602: A wall constructed of suitable material. Masonry walls are ideal for placing U-bolts , eye bolts, or eye screws, anchored with either plastic plugs or expandable lead shields, directly into the mortar joints. Wooden walls may be better fitted with galvanized nipples, using turnbuckles for adjustment of the wire tautness. Suitable, established and healthy plants, three to four feet tall and perhaps in three-gallon containers, are available from most nurseries . Some may even have trellises already installed. These plants could also be good candidates for espalier treatment if their form

451-436: Is limited. In a temperate climate , espaliers may be trained next to a wall that can reflect more sunlight and retain heat overnight or oriented so that they absorb maximum sunlight by training them parallel to the equator. These two strategies allow the season to be extended so that fruit has more time to mature. A restricted form of training consists of a central stem and a number of paired horizontal branches all trained in

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492-425: Is similar to the intended design, as they frequently have already been pruned into a flattened overall plant shape. All that is required for such specimens is transplanting . Unpruned plants benefit from being allowed to become well established following transplant, before pruning them gradually into their flattened profile and training them as designed. Any major pruning needed is generally accomplished either while

533-464: Is the horticultural and ancient agricultural practice of controlling woody plant growth for the production of fruit, by pruning and tying branches to a frame. Plants are frequently shaped in formal patterns, flat against a structure such as a wall, fence , or trellis , and also plants which have been shaped in this way. Espaliers, trained into flat two-dimensional forms, are used not only for decorative purposes, but also for gardens in which space

574-674: The Cavendish banana , the most consumed banana in the Western world. Paxton was born in 1803, the seventh son of a farming family, in Milton Bryan , Bedfordshire. Some references, incorrectly, list his birth year as 1801. This is, as he admitted in later life, a result of misinformation he provided in his teens, which enabled him to enrol at Chiswick Gardens. He became a garden boy at the age of fifteen for Sir Gregory Osborne Page-Turner at Battlesden Park , near Woburn . After several moves, he obtained

615-473: The Great Exhibition made personal, small-scale greenhouses possible, it became full of adverts for these, many designed by Paxton himself, and from the sales of which he generated a tidy income. Joseph Paxton Sir Joseph Paxton (3 August 1803 – 8 June 1865) was an English gardener , architect, engineer and Member of Parliament, best known for designing the Crystal Palace and for cultivating

656-514: The Midland Railway to meet the chairman John Ellis who was also a member of parliament. He happened to mention an idea he had for the hall, and Ellis promptly encouraged to produce some plans, provided they could be ready in nine days. Unfortunately he was committed for the next few days, but at a board meeting of the railway in Derby, it is said he appeared to be spending much of his time doodling on

697-566: The Great Exhibition were in a quandary. An international competition to design a building to house the Exhibition had produced 245 designs, of which only two were remotely suitable, and all would take too long to build and would be too permanent. There was an outcry by the public and in Parliament against the desecration of Hyde Park . Paxton was visiting London in his capacity as a director of

738-589: The actual trellis or frame on which such a plant was trained to grow, but over time it has come to be used to describe both the practice and the plants themselves. Espalier as a technique seems to have started with the ancient Romans . In the Middle Ages the Europeans refined it into an art. The practice was popularly used in Europe to produce fruit inside the walls of a typical castle courtyard without interfering with

779-408: The arched elements of laminated wood. At the time, the conservatory was the largest glass building in the world. The largest sheet glass available at that time, made by Robert Chance, was 3 ft (0.91 m) long. Chance produced 4 ft (1.2 m) sheets for Paxton's benefit. The structure was heated by eight boilers using seven miles (11 km) of iron pipe and cost more than £30,000. It had

820-473: The circulation of The Gardeners' Chronicle was given as 6500. Compared with that of the far more eminent Observer at 6230, and The Economist at 3826, The Gardeners' Chronicle did astonishingly well. Possibly these figures include the Chronicle's large international readership. It was noted for its large advertising section and when the glass tax was abolished in 1845 and the huge interest generated by

861-670: The design in the Illustrated London News to universal acclaim. Its novelty was its revolutionary modular, prefabricated design, and use of glass. Glazing was carried out from special trolleys, and was fast: one man managed to fix 108 panes in a single day. The Palace was 1,848 ft (563 m) long, 408 ft (124 m) wide and 108 ft (33 m) high. It required 4,500 tons of iron, 60,000 sq ft (5,600 m ) of timber and needed over 293,000 panes of glass. Yet it took 2,000 men just eight months to build, and cost just £79,800. Quite unlike any other building, it

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902-476: The elements were pre-fabricated and, like modular buildings , could be produced in vast numbers and assembled into buildings of varied design. In 1836, Paxton began construction of the Great Conservatory, or Stove, a huge glasshouse 227 ft (69 m) long and 123 ft (37 m) wide that was designed by the 6th Duke's architect Decimus Burton . The columns and beams were made of cast iron , and

943-400: The following styles. Espalier plants on solid walls are usually installed 15–30 cm (6–12 in) from the base of that wall, to allow space below ground for roots to grow in all directions as well as space above ground for good air circulation and pest control . Supports for wire guides, which are generally necessary to train an espalier into a design, are installed first, directly into

984-497: The forerunner of the modern greenhouse. The next great building at Chatsworth was built for the first seeds of the Victoria regia lily which had been sent to Kew from the Amazon in 1836. Although they had germinated and grown they had not flowered and in 1849 a seedling was given to Paxton to try out at Chatsworth. He entrusted it to Eduard Ortgies , a young gardener and within two months

1025-702: The ground. During the summer, buds lengthen into branches; one trained vertically to the next wire while others are trained along the wires. Unnecessary buds are removed by rubbing them away with a thumb. In autumn, the side branches are lowered and tied to the wires completing the level. The following year another level is created. Examples of species for espalier include: Espalier design often uses traditional formal patterns developed over hundreds of years, but can also employ more modern informal designs. A stunted or deformed plant, or one that already has interesting or unique characteristics, might be just right for an informal espalier. Common formal patterns include

1066-433: The horizontal in autumn while still flexible enough and tied to a trellis; Fan, where the branches are lowered and cut back then trained further; Horizontal T, where the branches are trained to horizontal as with step-over but the vertical stem is trained up to another level and cut usually in spring of the second year, where another V shape is created and the resulting branches finally being lowered to another wire in autumn of

1107-407: The leaves were 4.5 ft (1.4 m) in diameter, and a month later it flowered. It continued growing and it became necessary to build a much larger house, the Victoria Regia House. Inspired by the waterlily's huge leaves – 'a natural feat of engineering' – he found the structure for his conservatory which he tested by floating his daughter Annie on a leaf. The secret was in the rigidity provided by

1148-454: The open space and to decorate solid walls by planting flattened trees near them. Vineyards have used the technique in the training of grapes for hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years. A Belgian fence is created by cutting back an unbranched, slender tree to between 40 and 45 centimetres (15 and 18 in) above the ground. The topmost three buds are allowed to form; one in the middle is trained vertically while two others are trained into

1189-472: The prefabricated glass and iron structural techniques which Paxton pioneered and would employ for his masterpiece: The Crystal Palace of the Great Exhibition of 1851. These techniques were made physically possible by recent technological advances in the manufacture of both glass and cast iron, and financially possible by the dropping of a tax on glass. In 1850 the Royal Commission appointed to organise

1230-445: The radiating ribs connecting with flexible cross-ribs. Constant experimentation over a number of years led him to devise the glasshouse design that inspired the Crystal Palace. With a cheap and light wooden frame, the conservatory design had a ridge-and-furrow roof to let in more light and drained rainwater away. He used hollow pillars doubling as drain pipes and designed a special rafter that acted as an internal and external gutter. All

1271-699: The railway industry. He retired from Chatsworth when the Duke died in 1858 but carried on working at various projects such as the Thames Graving Dock. Paxton died at his home at Rockhills, Sydenham, in 1865 and was buried on the Chatsworth Estate in St Peter's Churchyard, Edensor . His wife Sarah remained at their house on the Chatsworth Estate until her death in 1871. Espalier Espalier ( / ɪ ˈ s p æ l ɪər / or / ɪ ˈ s p æ l i . eɪ / )

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1312-474: The same plane. The most important advantage is that of being able to increase the growth of a branch by training it vertically. Later, one can decrease growth while increasing fruit production by training it horizontally. The word espalier is French, coming from the Italian spalliera , meaning "something to rest the shoulder ( spalla ) against." During the 17th century, the word initially referred only to

1353-455: The second year. Multiple levels of horizontal branching can be trained in this way. Certain types of trees adapt better to espalier than others, but almost any woody plant can be trained to grow along a flat plane by removing growth outside that plane. Horizontal T training of an apple or pear tree is a good example of the ideal species for espalier. In the spring, the tree is pruned to the lowest wire perhaps 40–45 cm (15–18 in) above

1394-612: The size". Both buildings still stand today. Paxton also designed another country house, a smaller version of Mentmore, at Battlesden near Woburn in Bedfordshire. This house was bought by the Duke of Bedford thirty years after its completion, and demolished, because the Duke wanted no other mansion close to Woburn Abbey . In 1860, Paxton also designed Fairlawn, 89 Wimbledon Park Side, for Sir Edwin Saunders, Queen Victoria 's dentist. Paxton

1435-538: Was a Liberal Member of Parliament for Coventry from 1854 until his death in 1865. In June 1855 he presented a scheme he called the Great Victorian Way to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Metropolitan Communications in which he envisaged the construction of an arcade, based on the structure of the Crystal Palace, in a ten-mile loop around the centre of London. It would have incorporated

1476-516: Was commissioned by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild to design Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire. This became one of the greatest country houses built during the Victorian Era . Following the completion of Mentmore, James Mayer de Rothschild , one of Baron de Rothschild's French cousins, commissioned Château de Ferrières at Ferrières-en-Brie near Paris to be "Another Mentmore, but twice

1517-707: Was considered one of the finest landscaped gardens of the time. Although the duke was in Russia, Paxton set off for Chatsworth on the Chesterfield coach arriving at Chatsworth at half past four in the morning. By his own account he had explored the gardens after scaling the kitchen garden wall, set the staff to work, eaten breakfast with the housekeeper and met his future wife, Sarah Bown, the housekeeper's niece, completing his first morning's work before nine o'clock. He married Bown in 1827, and she proved capable of managing his affairs, leaving him free to pursue his ideas. He enjoyed

1558-561: Was honoured by being a member of the Kew Commission, which was to suggest improvements for Royal Botanic Gardens , and by being considered for the post of Head Gardener at Windsor Castle . On 17 March 1860, during the enthusiasm for the Volunteer movement , Paxton raised and commanded the 11th (Matlock) Derbyshire Rifle Volunteer Corps . Paxton became affluent, not so much through his Chatsworth employment, but by successful speculation in

1599-538: Was invited to lay out one of the country's first municipal burial grounds in Coventry . This became the London Road Cemetery , where a memorial to Paxton by Joseph Goddard was erected in 1868. Between 1835 and 1839, he organised plant-hunting expeditions, one of which ended in tragedy when two gardeners from Chatsworth sent to California drowned. Tragedy also struck at home when his eldest son died. In 1850, Paxton

1640-556: Was itself a demonstration of British technology in iron and glass. In its construction, Paxton was assisted by Charles Fox , also of Derby for the iron framework, and William Cubitt , Chairman of the Building Committee. All three were knighted . After the exhibition they were employed by the Crystal Palace Company to move it to Sydenham where it remained until it was destroyed by fire in 1936. In 1831, Paxton published

1681-558: Was moved from Kedleston Road in Derby. Among several other large projects at Chatsworth were the rock garden , the Emperor Fountain , and rebuilding Edensor village. The Emperor Fountain was built in 1844; it was twice the height of Nelson's Column and required the creation of a feeder lake on the hill above the gardens necessitating the excavation of 100,000 cu yd (76,000 m ) of earth. In 1832, Paxton developed an interest in greenhouses at Chatsworth where he designed

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