‘Blossoming places in the wilderness’: W. H. Hudson’s anti-gardens

Our theme for the autumn and winter terms is ‘An Open Book: Gardens in Literature and Letters’.

The Anglo-Argentine author and naturalist, W. H. Hudson (1841-1922), was not much of a gardener. Vocal in his dislike of hothouse flowers, as well as over-fastidious gardening practices, across his writings he extolled the virtues of leaving nature to its own devices: “Trim flower gardens show us the beauty of thorns and briars, and make us in love with desolation”. This paper will explore Hudson’s (often irate) commentaries on gardeners as well as his writings on the ‘anti-garden’: neglected or peripheral spaces such as hedgerows or churchyards where wild flowers, birds, and invertebrates can thrive. For Hudson, such spaces were critical not only for the survival of threatened species, but also for human health and wellbeing. The paper will conclude by discussing Hudson’s involvement in a campaign to save Kew Gardens following proposals for the building of a National Physical Laboratory in the grounds in 1900. Although little known today, Hudson’s writings and campaigning – I will show – played a significant role in the preservation of green spaces in London and anticipated much current thinking about wilderness areas and organic gardening.

Lesley Wylie is Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Leicester. Her books include, most recently, The Poetics of Plants in Spanish American Literature (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020) and Understories: Plants and Culture in the American Tropics (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2023). She is particularly interested in the intersections between literature and the environment, with a focus on the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon and Cuba. She is currently completing a book project on the Anglo-Argentine author and naturalist, W. H. Hudson.