The second in a series tracing the history of flower arranging. The eighteenth century saw sweeping changes in the British landscape as a result of Capability Brown and his followers.
Formal gardens were dug up in an attempt to recreate a natural look and inside the house, flowers were displayed with a carefully arranged irregularity.
Corinne Julius visited Osterley Park, the eighteenth century house designed by Robert Adam, where she met Linda Custim who arranges the flowers at Osterley, and Mary Rose Blacker, consultant on historical flower arranging to the National Trust.
They met in the Tapestry Room where flowers were very hard to avoid. Mary Rose Blacker is author of Flora Domestica - A History of British Flower Arranging 1500 - 1930 (Harry N Abrams, ISBN: 0810967030).
