Tonight, we’ll read from “The Wild Garden” by William Robinson, published in 1870. Robinson was an Irish gardener and journalist whose ideas about wild gardening spurred the movement that led to the popularising of the English cottage garden. He was a champion of the ""wild garden"", who vanquished the high Victorian pattern garden of planted-out bedding schemes, which used tropical plants grown in greenhouses.

Modern gardening practices first introduced by Robinson include: using alpine plants in rock gardens; dense plantings of perennials and groundcovers that expose no bare soil; use of hardy perennials and native plants; and large plantings of perennials in natural-looking drifts.