Early Life and Family Background

Lawrence Johnston entered the world on 12 October 1871 in Paris, France. He was born into a family of significant means, hailing from a lineage of wealthy American East Coast stockbrokers from Baltimore. This background of prosperity provided a foundation of stability, though his early years were shaped by a more private and sheltered upbringing. Rather than attending a formal schoolhouse during his youth, he was educated at home, a method that allowed for a personal and perhaps more idiosyncratic development of his intellect.

As he matured, his path led him away from the domestic sphere and toward the academic traditions of Britain. In 1893, he arrived at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. It was within these storied halls that the young man began to transition into the man who would eventually reshape the landscapes of two different nations. His time at Cambridge marked a departure from his private studies, placing him in an environment of rigorous thought and social expectation.

Garden Design and Plant Hunting

After becoming a naturalised British subject in January 1900, Johnston’s life took a turn toward the military. He served in the Second Boer War and was commissioned in 1901, an experience that unexpectedly shaped his future as a plantsman. It was during his time in South Africa that he first developed a deep fascination with the local flora. This passion soon earned him professional recognition when the Royal Horticultural Society elected him as a fellow in 1904.

His ambition as a collector drove him to seek out the rare and the unusual, leading him to sponsor or undertake numerous expeditions across Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. He sought to bring back specimens that could transform the landscapes he tended. In 1922, he traveled to the Alps for plant-hunting alongside Edward Augustus Bowles. His reach extended to the high altitudes of the Andes in 1923, where he sponsored W. T. Goethe on an expedition to secure new species.

The pursuit of rare plants remained a constant thread in his life. He returned to South Africa in 1927 to lead another expedition, and by 1930, his interests had led him to the mountains of Yunnan. Through these travels, he gathered the botanical treasures that would eventually define his approach to garden structure and composition.

The Gardens of Hidcote and Menton

In 1907, his mother purchased the Hidcote Manor estate, a sprawling stretch of some 300 acres near Hidcote Bartram in Britain. It was here that Johnston began a labor of forty years, shaping the landscape with a keen eye for structure. He sought to create a series of discrete, surprising spaces, blending a love for rare plants with a desire for experimental combinations. His work at Hidcote was not merely about cultivation but about the creation of artistic effects through harmonies and contrasts. He often planted his specimens thickly to suppress weeds, allowing the colors to bloom in bold, dense masses.

His life eventually split between two distinct climates. In 1924, he acquired Serre de la Madone on the Mediterranean coast of France, near Menton. This acquisition changed the rhythm of his years; he spent the majority of his time in Menton, returning to the English air of Hidcote only for a few months during the summer. At the French estate, he transformed terraces of olives and vines into a landscape defined by drifts of agapanthus and the bold shapes of strelitzia. While Hidcote offered a sense of structured enclosure, the gardens at Menton provided a different, more exotic character through their sun-drenched terraces.

The legacy of his labor at Hidcote eventually passed from his private hands to the public. In 1948, the National Trust acquired the estate, ensuring that the gardens he had spent decades refining would remain for others to walk through. He had spent his life moving between these two worlds, the structured English estate and the bright Mediterranean coast, leaving behind a legacy written in soil and bloom.

Later Years and Death

As the years progressed, the pull of the Mediterranean grew stronger for the garden designer. From 1945, Johnston began to spend more of his time at Serre de la Madone, finding a sense of place among the terraces of the French coast. This period of his life was marked by a deepening connection to the landscape he had so carefully shaped near Menton. While his work at Hidcote continued to be studied by others, his heart often resided in the warmth of the French sun.

The end of his life came on 27 April 1958. He passed away at Serre de la Madone, leaving behind the gardens that had defined his existence. In a final gesture of care for the living, he left his beloved garden at Serre de la Madone to Nancy Lindsay, the daughter of his close friend Norah Lindsay. It was a gift that ensured the continuity of the botanical arrangements he had nurtured for so long.

His final rest was found in the quiet earth of England. He was buried in the churchyard at Mickleton, near Hidcote, lying next to his mother. There he remains, a man whose life was measured by the growth of rare specimens and the careful arrangement of living spaces.