Class, Taste and Gardening - A Taste for Gardening: Classed and Gendered Practices - page 125

Figure 6.6 'There's no Form': Looking Past Rosemary and Maud's Garden,

1999

Rosemary : and you can go and see that wonderful example by going out of there and onto
our garden…you can see three illustrations of what a garden can be like …and I'll tell you
why they've done it when you've had a look at them, make your own mind up. It's quite
an interesting exercise out there.

As this section has demonstrated, there were profound differences in terms of the
garden aesthetics the men and women of this study were able to generate. As a result
of their paucity of cultural capital, the working-class gardeners had no historical or
architectural reference points, and so the creation of a garden set within a known
tradition, which they might have created in keeping with the ethos of the architectural
moment of their homes, was beyond them. As a result, they turned to locally visible
aesthetics; 'fitting in' with everybody else in the street offered a safe enough design.
Moreover in the realm of plants, working-class gardeners, as Bourdieu argues in
relation to aesthetics, had no recognition of form. The plants they most valued were
bedding plants - but they were not interested in the form of these plants. Rather,
plants such as petunias, impatiens, marigolds, plants which form the paintbox for the
park gardener working on a municipal display, were required for colour. Colour - a
riot of colour, multi-colours, colours 'all bunched up' - was what plants were there to
provide. A plant's function was to provide colour for the gardener in the most valued
places such as tubs and hanging baskets. Such plants served the function of ensuring
the garden tantalised the observer with the pure sensation of colour as opposed to
the artistic/intellectual blend of form. Moreover colour in abundance was often key
to this kind of aesthetic; where an investment was made in bedding plants, they were