About
“The love of gardening is a seed that, once sown, never dies but always grows.”
Photographs © Gertrude Jekyll Designs
Munstead Flower Glasses
Miss Jekyll designed and commissioned the Munstead Flower Glasses when she failed to find vases that met her exacting standards. She used them to display the flowers grown in her garden at Munstead Wood, Surrey, and they feature in many of her photographs.
In 1903, Miss Jekyll’s designs were rewarded with silver and bronze medals from The Royal Horticultural Society and National Rose Society.
Over a century later, we have reintroduced the Munstead Flower Glasses so your own arrangements may benefit from their uncluttered lines.
Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932)
One of the most influential garden designers of the twentieth century, Miss Jekyll created some 400 gardens across the British Isles, Europe and America. More than 100 of them, including her own at Munstead Wood in Surrey, were in partnership with the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.
Born in London in 1843, the young Gertrude spent her childhood in Bramley, amid the rural heaths and woods of Surrey. Throughout her life she was known as Miss Jekyll which was the convention for an unmarried woman.
In 1861 she enrolled at the South Kensington Schools (later the Royal College of Art) and went on to become a talented artist, craftswoman and interior decorator. She later turned to gardening due to deteriorating eyesight.
Miss Jekyll thought of the garden as a palette, arranging and grouping plants according to colour, texture and shape. She followed these principles in her own garden at Munstead Wood (purchased by the National Trust in 2023), where she also established a plant nursery.
From 1881, Miss Jekyll contributed copious gardening articles to The Garden and other publications including The Guardian and Country Life. She also wrote fourteen books, illustrated with her own photographs. Though she didn’t court publicity, Munstead Wood become well known and many visitors called.
‘Artist, Gardener, Craftswoman’ is inscribed on Miss Jekyll’s grave at St John the Baptist, Busbridge, Surrey. Designed by her friend and collaborator Sir Edwin Lutyens, it is a simple testament to a formidably accomplished woman.
Miss Jekyll said: ‘The love of gardening is a seed that, once sown, never dies but always grows’. And so it goes with our Munstead Flower Glasses.
For biographical details about Gertrude Jekyll visit: https://gertrudejekyll.co.uk/
Inspiration Behind Gertrude Jekyll Designs
As Gertrude Jekyll’s great great niece, Christina has been influenced by her vision and ideas, which have quietly shaped her own lifelong love of gardens and flowers.
The spark for this project began by chance. While searching through old family files for something different, Christina fell upon a folded pattern sheet of Miss Jekyll’s vase designs from the early 1900s, called The “Munstead” Flower Glasses. Printed on thin tracing paper, the rediscovered treasure revealed a collection of simple yet useful vase shapes in varying sizes designed by Miss Jekyll.
Crafted with an acute understanding of flowers and how best to display them, the cleverly shaped vases feature weighted bases and rounded edges. They are designed to hold plenty of water. Deceptively simple, their shapes work to support stems at just the right angle, allowing the beauty of the flowers to shine through.
Miss Jekyll devoted her energies to all things plant and flower related. As well as designing gardens, running a plant nursery and propagating plants, she was also a highly accomplished flower arranger.
Inspired by her gardens, many of her cut-flower arrangements were made using her own vase designs, which support and enhance a single variety as well as more elaborate arrangements.
As an amateur photographer, she embraced the emerging medium of photography, capturing the vitality of cut-flowers in her carefully composed still-life arrangements. Developing her own prints, she used these photographs in her books and in articles.
When the first vase prototypes were made, friends and family loved them. Their enthusiasm convinced Christina that these timeless designs deserved to be enjoyed more widely, and so Gertrude Jekyll Designs was born.
In reviving these designs, Christina has embraced the qualities of craftsmanship that Miss Jekyll so greatly valued. Every vase is hand blown using traditional glassmaking techniques, giving each piece its own subtle individuality and integrity, whilst remaining faithful to the original designs.
The vases are unstated and elegant. They are deeply satisfying to use. The ease with which they flatter flowers has made these historic designs the go-to vases for flower lovers. Think of them as your instant flower arranger - it really is that easy.
Whether given as a thoughtful gift or kept for personal use, these vases are made to be enjoyed year after year. Showcasing cut-flowers and foliage with the same grace and delight that inspired Gertrude Jekyll, they are a timeless classic for the flower arranger in all of us.