Gender and Gardening - A Taste for Gardening: Classed and Gendered Practices - page 151

attention they required: in this way, contrary to popular assumptions that floristry
is a female pursuit, floristry started life as a recreation for working-class men. The
centre of the movement was located in the cottages near to mill towns in the north
of Britain - in Scotland, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and importantly in
Yorkshire. Later, flower breeding offered a release from the oppression of industrial
working conditions, as Scott-James argues, 'when the industrial revolution made the
artisan's life increasingly grim and mechanical, floristry was more precious to him
than ever, perhaps the only lifeline connecting him with the natural world' (Scott-
James 1981, 81).
As cottage gardeners began to produce exceptional flowers and new varieties,
florists' clubs and flower shows were founded so that choice plants could be
exhibited. At the start florists applied themselves to a wide range of garden flowers,
but even as early as 1638 writers had begun to distinguish which kinds of plants were
regarded as worthy of selective breeding. Note the gendered distinction the Rev.
Samuel Gilbert makes here about the worthless, ordinary flowers grown by country
housewives - plants that the florist, here by implication male, should avoid:
There is your garden mallows, double hollyhocks, snapdragons, toadflax, foxgloves,
thistles, scabious….trifles adored by countrywomen in their gardens, but of no esteem to
a florist, who is taken up with things of most value (Scott-James, 1981, 82).
Since the seventeenth century the canon of valued floristry flowers tended to both
contract and expand at specific historical moments, so that certain plants came in
and out of floristry vogue. Post-1800 however, the list of eight accepted plants was
enlarged to include the dahlia, pansy, iris - and among others, the chrysanthemum.
In these ways the development of floristry and flower shows and the specific kinds
of plants which were valued in floristry circles have a specifically northern, male
history. It therefore comes as no surprise that several of the working-class men of
my study can be seen to continue aspects of the historical legacy of floristry; it acted
as a form of masculine cultural capital which could be traded for economic capital
at the local level.
Philip told me that his father had grown chrysanthemums for show. Philip also
grew chrysanthemums and he had successfully sold them, along with eggs, at work
for many years. Chrysanthemums had also played a significant role in James's life: he
had grown them by the thousand to sell on local markets as an income for the private
gardens he tended; they were a significant staple flower in his floristry business
and he was a proclaimed chrysanthemum enthusiast: 'I'm a chrysanthemum man,'
he told me. These men felt entirely comfortable announcing their enthusiasm for
the chrysanthemum; significantly, these were the only instances where men freely
announced their admiration for a particular flower. Yet while the chrysanthemum
was aesthetically valued it was also a flower that held significant economic capital
for men located in working-class economies: it won cash prizes in flower shows
and as a commodity with mass appeal it could be sold on both large and small scale
markets. It was safe to like the chrysanthemum; because it was linked to work and
earnings, it carried masculine capital for working-class men. Other men in their
families and local communities found it pleasing aesthetically, but it could also be