Don't Forget the Garden

Yesterday I watched 1940s House for the first time.  Today I'm watching (re-watching, since I saw it when it first aired) 1900 House.  I'm struck that both shows made a point of hiring garden historians to help out.  That isn't quite so surprising with the 1940s House as "Dig for Victory" was the UK's equivalent of our Victory Garden campaigns.  But it's a bit surprising that it was given that sort of thought for the 1900 House.  It's a middle class South London house and presumably the vegetable garden was more exceptional for city dwellers then.  Yet they hired Katie Butler, a horticultural historian, to help landscape the back yard.  She used most of the backyard for a Victorian ornamental garden, with a bit put aside for vegetables with cultivar names like "Telephone".