The first public botanic garden opened in Liverpool in 1802.  The Horticultural Society of London was founded in 1804; it would become the Royal Horticultural Society in 1861.  The first of eight subsequent editions of John Loudon's immense Encyclopedia of Gardening was published in 1822.  The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew were established in 1840.  The Gardeners' Chronicle was first published in 1841 and would become the century's major gardening paper.  (pp. 11-12)

       While the use of rockery in gardens had been somewhat popular for some time, many of these were either simply geological agglomerates of several different types of rock or a "planting" of basically upward-pointing spikes.  However, those persons advocating the imitation of nature were gaining ground in the 1840s, with tons of rock in effect transplanted as methodically as the trees brought in from distances.  A few outstanding examples were created (specifically Pencarow, Cornwall, 1831-34; Elvaston Castle, 1838; and Chatsworth, 1842) and were regarded as setting new standards in naturalistic construction.  Yet, within a generation all were to be condemned or dismissed as failures or bad examples.  Thus, the first phase of naturalism -- consistency of material, natural scale, and massiveness of stone -- gave way to the second phase, whose criteria were position (not in the vicinity of the house where obvious art should reign) and stratification (should not defy the laws of gravity, should be inclined along similar angles, and should lie on their natural beds).  One great exception to the rule of congruity was allowed: Sir Charles Isham's rockery at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire, begun in 1848, which received uniformly favorable treatment in the horticultural press despite its commanding position in front of the house.  It presented a surface full of 'deep recesses, bold protrusions, mounds as if fallen from ruins', and was planted with a wide range of climbing and carpeting plants, but above all it included dwarfed trees -- for instance, a miniature willow three inches high -- often the result of root-pruning (emphasis added by RJB) .  By this expedient, the planting was to some degree kept in scale with the rock work: the aesthetic of scale modelling was developed to such a degree that its sheer consistency of approach seems to have overawed potential objectors.   (pp. 94-97)

       As gardeners began to cope systematically with the problems of growing hitherto unfamiliar plants, their horticultural expertise blossomed in a way unknown to previous generations.  The fifty years of the mid-19th century (1833-1883) had 'seen horticulture developed from an empirical mystery to an art founded on the truths of nature and the achievements of science,' and even in 1828 'some of the best gardeners in the country did not know or understand the principle of potting plants.'  Much of the credit for this achievement was awarded to John Lindley, whose book ( Theory of Horticulture, 1840) was credited with 'raising horticulture almost to an exact science...and so demolishing that huge monster -- empiricism.'
       The development of horticultural science lay in great part in an immense program of experimentation by early Victorian gardeners.  Experiments on hardiness; experiments on wintering plants, or forcing them out of season; experiments on trenching and drainage, soil sterilization by burning, the use of earth closets; the great Rothamsted series of experiments on fertilizers, begun in the 1840s; Darwin's investigations of earthworms and the formation of vegetable mould in the 1870s, and the later discoveries about soil bacteria; experiments on pest control; experiments on pruning, cordon training, and root-pruning of fruit trees; experiments on tree regeneration; and, above all, experiments on plant breeding.
       But of all the technical improvements, the one that had the most obvious impact on garden design was the art of transplanting.  Le Nôtre's achievements at Versailles had served as a model for intermittent practice in the eighteenth century, but in the 1820s the subject was reopened by Sir Henry Steuart, whose transplanting machine and technique of moving large trees bare-rooted served as a model for many experiments during the next decades.  Then, in the 1830s, an alternative technique was pioneered by William Barron: trees were moved with their roots still encased in a ball of earth, and instead of being dropped into a hole, the rootball was rested on the ground and a new mound built up around it.  Using this method, Barron achieved a minimal loss rate and was soon transplanting trees of immense size and age over long distances, to the amazement of his contemporaries.
       Then there were the inventions: the lawn mower (1830), Portland cement (the search for which resulted in the development of James Pulham's artificial stone rockeries), the wrought iron glazing bar and cast iron for larger and sturdier greenhouses (and the related improvements because of the introduction of sheet glass in 1847), and the Wardian case.  This latter device provided a self-sustaining environment for plants, which thus had a profound impact on plant introductions from around the globe.  Before the 1830s, most exotics were delivered by bringing home either seed wrapped in moist cloth or growing specimens, which on sea voyages had either to be kept below decks in inadequate lighting, or on deck where they were exposed to corrosive salt spray.  Whereas nurseries had been lucky previously to receive one specimen out of twenty intact, after the Wardian case was employed it was seen as a misfortune to lose one plant out of twenty.
       Added to this all was an artistic ferment spread by the proliferating gardening magazines launched by gardeners or gardening journalists.  (pp. 16-20)

       Now, when the English gardener of the mid-19th century thought about Japanese garden-craft, he thought first about bonsai.  Robert Fortune had drawn attention to the Chinese art of dwarfing trees in his books of travel, and John Lindley mentioned the practice in his Theory of Horticulture (1840).  Yet even in that age of the proclaimed triumph of art over nature, dwarfed trees aroused little enthusiasm, especially with such a wide range of sizes available among the newly introduced shrubs, many from China and Japan.  Despite the interest in root-pruning, and Sir Charles Isham's experiments in dwarfing at Lamport Hall, the same prejudice that discouraged topiary militated more successfully against bonsai.  Indeed, the two were often conflated, as in Linton Park's head gardener John Robson's description of the topiary at Elvaston Castle as being in the Japanese-Chinese taste.
       The technical skill was there, however, and toward the end of the century it gradually emerged.  In 1872, for a banquet given in Liverpool for the Japanese embassy, the young G.A. Audsley, later an important authority on Japanese art, supervised a display of British-trained bonsai.  As topiary became more popular, bonsai was looked upon more favorably; by the Edwardian period it had already become a cult, particularly associated with patrons of horticulture as Joseph Chamberlain at Highbury. (pp. 199-200)

        It is notable that the small Japanese garden created at the 1873 Vienna Exhibition was so popular and made such an impression that it was re-created at Alexandra Park in London as a permanent feature by the same Japanese gardeners who had worked on it at the exhibition. (pp. 209-210)

        The scale-model approach dominated most early attempts at Japonaiserie in the garden.  The 'Japanese' garden at Ivy House, Shipley Glen, laid out in the 1880s by a Yorkshire restauranteur named Thomas Hartley, contained a miniature lake and islands, one carrying two pagodas, but on the other stood a miniature castle with no Japanese connotations.  After the publication of Josiah Conder's books about Japanese gardening in the early 1890s, however, such naïvety was proscribed.   (pg. 200)

        At the Paris Exhibition of 1900, for the first time, some valuable art treasures owned by the Emperor, noblemen, and temples were exhibited.  A model of Kondo (golden hall) in Horyu-ji, twenty meters in height, was erected near the Trocadero, with all the materials bought in France.  The hall contained collections of traditional fine arts and in front there was a small Japanese garden creating an impressive effect.  (pg. 213)

       The St. Louis Exposition of 1904 doubled the space allocated at the Paris Exhibition and the number of exhibits trebled.  A replica of the Kinkaku-ji (golden pavilion) of Kyoto was erected as an authentic architectural example, together with the usual features such as a Japanese garden, a tea house, a bazaar, a Japanese theater, and several gateways.  (pp. 213-214)