Writer Jane Powers on the Link Between Bedding Plants and Wealth

"In the heyday of bedding, the number of plants that a person displayed was a gauge of their wealth and status.

According to the head gardener at the Rothschild estate at Halton in Buckinghamshire, it was:
10,000 plants for a squire,
20,000 for a baronet,
30,000 for an earl, and
40,000 for a duke."

November 13, 2010

On this day, Jane Powers wrote an excellent article for the Irish Times.

My favorite snippet from this article was Jane's correlation between the number of bedding plants a person ordered during the middle of the 19th century and their corresponding personal wealth.

Here's what she wrote:

In the heyday of bedding, the number of plants that a person displayed was a gauge of their wealth and status.

According to the head gardener at the Rothschild estate at Halton in Buckinghamshire, it was:

10,000 plants for a squire,
20,000 for a baronet,
30,000 for an earl, and
40,000 for a duke.