William Robinson (5 July 1838 – 17 May 1935) was an Irish practical
gardener and journalist whose ideas about wild gardening spurred the movement that led to the popularising of the
English cottage garden, a parallel to the search for honest simplicity and vernacular style of the British
Arts and Crafts movement. Robinson is credited as an early practitioner of the mixed
herbaceous border of hardy
perennial plants, a champion too of the "
wild garden", who vanquished the high Victorian pattern garden of planted-out bedding schemes. Robinson's new approach to gardening gained popularity through his magazines and several books—particularly
The Wild Garden, illustrated by
Alfred Parsons, and
The English Flower Garden.