Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll created more than 400 gardens in Britain, Europe and North America in her extensive career. Jekyll was among the most influential advocates for the Arts and Crafts style of garden design, mixing traditional formal elements with more 'natural' features. Jekyll's designs make use of colour and texture, said to be inspired by her other career as an impressionist painter and watercolourist. She met the architect Edwin Lutyens at a tea party in 1889, forming a renowned 'perfect partnership.' 

Jekyll designed her own garden at Munstead Wood in Surrey as well as the Manor House at Upton Grey. Her influence can be seen in the gardens of Mount Grace Priory, whose rich planting and layouts by contemporary garden designer Chris Beardshaw typify the Arts and Crafts movement. The striking Broadwalk at Walmer Castle was also replanted in a 'looser' style in modern times, using a colour scheme inspired by Gertrude's work. 

Fanny Wilkinson

Britain's first female professional landscape gardener, Fanny Wilkinson is best known for the designs of countless parks and public spaces across London. After training as the first female pupil of the School of Gardening at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, she went on to join the Council of the Kyrle Society in 1881 and was elected honorary landscape gardener to the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association which formed in 1882 to provide "to the people gardens, and to the children playgrounds." 

Wilkinson is estimated to have laid out more than 75 public gardens with the MPGA. She was also an activist and political campaigner and advocated for the professionalisation of women's work, once saying: "I certainly do not let myself be underpaid [...] I know my profession and charge accordingly, as all women should do."

In 1902, Wilkinson became another female first as principal of Swanley Horticultural College in Kent. She retired to Suffolk and bred prize-winning goats. The building on Shaftesbury Avenue where she lived — likely with her three sisters — is home to a London Blue Plaque.

Charles Darwin

Though not known primarily as a gardener, the naturalist's study of plant life involved spending a lot of time in his beloved garden at the Darwins' family home in Kent. At Down House, Darwin spent many an hour collecting samples, studying the exotic varieties he cultivated there and ambling on his 'thinking path.' The Darwin children would climb from their bedroom window in the house and down the trunk of the mulberry tree to join their father at his work — a tree that produces mulberries each summer to this day. 

Darwin's 'living laboratory', the garden at Down House was pivotal to his work and his theory of natural selection outlined in On the Origin of Species. He grew many climbing plants on the verandah such as wisteria, ivy and clematis in order to study their different climbing mechanisms. He also established 'experimental beds' in his kitchen garden, where he identified the differing stamens and pistils of 'male' and 'female' plants.