Take our fun quiz to see if you could have cut it in a 19th-century English country garden. Write down your answer (A, B or C) to each question, and check your results at the bottom of the quiz!
1. What skills do you have in addition to gardening?
A) Reading and writing
B) Geometry, geology, surveying
C) None
2. In the summer the working day could start at 4am to cut the grass. Do you:
A) Force yourself out of bed
B) Enjoy the fresh early morning light
C) Pretend that you forgot
3. Where do you want to live?
A) On a cottage on the estate shared with two other gardeners
B) In a shed in the kitchen garden sharing a room with six other gardeners
C) In your own home with your family
4. You only get paid three shillings a week. You are asked to water the plants on a Sunday for no extra pay. Do you:
A) Water them as quickly as possible so you can get back to your day off
B) Water the plants thoroughly, they need it!
C) Enjoy your day off with a trip to the seaside
5. The head gardener takes credit for your work at the local flower show. Are you:
A) Upset but hope that one day it will be you
B) Pleased that you won even if you don’t get the credit
C) Annoyed – you deserved it!
6. What would you use for watering the award-winning cabbages?
A) A watering can
B) A large bucket of water and a watering can
C) A fire bucket
7. After a long day in the garden do you:
A) Record your day's tasks in a diary
B) Read a book on gardening
C) Go to sleep
8. What would you wear for a hard day’s work in the garden?
A) A clean white jacket and apron
B) Practical trousers, a shirt and a dark coloured apron
C) A smart suit
Glorious gardening!
Whether you scored top marks in our quiz, or need to brush up on your knowledge, put your Victorian gardening skills to the test with these challenges!
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Eager to explore
Plant collectors from Britain travelled all over the world looking for new trees and plants to grow in their gardens at home.
🔎 Where would you go to look for new plants?
🔎 Draw what you think they might they look like -
Gleaming glass
Advances in technology meant that greenhouses became bigger and better, to grow exotic fruit and vegetables more easily – even pineapples!
🔎 Which fruit and vegetables would you grow in your greenhouse?
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Formal flowers
The Victorian fashion was for gardens planted in patterns with brightly coloured flowers, to be admired from the windows above.
🔎 Have a go at designing your dream garden
🔎 What colours and patterns will you choose?
Meet the Victorian Gardener at Audley End
Victorian gardeners had lots of jobs to do, including picking food for the kitchen. Click to watch this video with Edgar Ashman, the third gardener at Audley End. Today he is harvesting apples for Mrs Crocombe the cook.
Read the magazineDiscover Victorian England
Now you’ve found out whether you would make a good Victorian apprentice gardener, and completed our challenges, read our Kids Rule! magazine online to learn more about the Victorians, from Queen Victoria to Charles Darwin.
This is issue 10 in the Kids Rule! magazine series, designed to help you discover more about the past, through fun facts, illustrated stories, games, puzzles and competitions.
Read the magazineMore to explore
