as published in Country Life, 16 September 1899
(Copyright Country Life Picture Library)
‘This [garden] belongs to Mr R.T. Foxlee, and is attached to his residence at 18 Burnaby Street, Chelsea. It is a monument to his ingenuity as well as to his patience, for a large carpet bedding arrangement such as this needs a vast amount of attention during summer, both with respect to watering and the necessary pinching and clipping. The yard attached to Mr. Foxlee’s house is the kind usually found behind villa residences in thickly populated centres; it is about eighteen feet wide, and probably more than fifteen feet deep; it is bounded on two sides by high brick walls, one of which is the next the street, while the other boundaries are Mr. Foxlee’s house and that of his neighbour, the latter having its side draped in Ampelopsis Veitchi (Parthenocissus tricuspidata ‘Veitchii’) … It will thus be seen that gardening is not carried on under the most favourable conditions, indeed, comparatively few persons would have attempted to garden in such a place.’
(The Gardeners’ Magazine, 1897)
Mr Foxlee laid out his first ‘hanging garden’ in c.1882 to embellish the roof of his newly formed hen-house. The contributor to The Gardeners’ Magazine informs us that ‘many years’ experience with this garden … resulted in an extensive use of carpet bedding every year, and nothing could possibly produce a brighter or more pleasing effect’.
Foxlee remarked in 1899 that ‘I have, unfortunately, no garden at the back of my house and my yard is of very limited area, but I manage to ‘farm’ some nine or ten fowls, and also taste the joy which a patch of garden in the heart of London ever brings.’
Views of Foxlee’s garden were published in The Garden in 1897, and in Country Life in 1899.