It is wonderful revelation when you come upon a story about a fascinating and inspiring person that you have never heard of, but who is just as interesting as a more famous personality. Such a person was Gertrude Jekyll (pronounced JEE-kill).

Gertrude Jekyll is a film-subject waiting to happen. All the ingredients are there to make an exciting biopic; she was born into a wealthy and artistic family. She was an intelligent, witty and popular woman although she was not a great beauty.  During the nineteenth century the role of the unwed daughter was usually to look after ageing parents, but both Gertrude and her family were enlightened enough to conclude that she would make a go of a career in art, writing and garden design—areas that she showed great promise in.

Since her childhood, spent in Surrey, Gertrude had been fascinated by plants and flowers and their relationship with each other. In 1861, her parents defied convention and enrolled their daughter in the South Kensington School of Art, which led to her association with members of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Ahead of her time, Gertrude learnt the techniques of being an artisan; she mastered thatching, fencing, walling, carpentry and metalworking, and became a designer craftswoman. She also became proficient in carving, gilding and inlaying; working in silver decorated by embossing. She even designed tools.
She was faced with the challenge and heart break of extreme short-sightedness and this cut short her future as a conventional painter and craftswoman. BUT not to be thwarted,  she took up gardening; she would later refer to her garden as a palette and described her plants shapes as brush strokes. Jekyll was a great fan of the works of J.M.W. Turner and even practiced copying his canvases. She visited the places in Italy where both Turner and Claude Monet had been inspired. 

She is most remembered for her bold and colorful English garden borders. In one of her many published books about gardens: Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden, Miss Jekylldescribes how she likes to mix soft and strong colours;

“White Broom is in flower from the middle of May to the second week of June. There is a fine Flag Iris of a rich purple colour... Then, if one of the hybrid Irises of pale lilac colour is there as well, and a bush of Rosa altaica, the colour-effect will be surprisingly beautiful."

An interesting aspect of Jekyll’s life is her long association with the young architect; Edwin Lutyens, after a chance meeting in 1889.  Their business partnership flourished and their personal friendship lasted till her death.  She encouraged him to acquire garden design know-how. Lutyens designed  Munstead Wood, Gertrude Jekyll's house in Surrey.

Jekyll became increasingly involved in the gardens Lutyens was designing for his houses, advising him on the materials to be used and supplying detailed planting plans. An example of their work together is Orchards in Munstead built entirely of local material.

Another interesting fact relating to Gertrude, is that her brother Walter was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, who subsequently gave one of his famous characters the surname Jekyll.

Jekyll wrote –often with her own photographs and illustrations—no less than 13 detailed gardening books and many magazine and newspaper articles. Her principles of planting and composition profoundly influenced garden design through the British Isles, in France, and particularly in the United States.

Recommended Viewing:
There have been some great biographical films made about the lives of many famous and colourful artists;                                                                                                                      

• Miss. Potter dramatises the tale of children’s writer/naturalist Beatrix Potter                                                                           
• Artemisia (Gentileschi) is about one of the first well-known female painters                                                              
• Fur is based on thelife of photographer Diane Arbus