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This entry concerns the history of ornamental gardening considered as an amenity of civilized life, as a vehicle for
style, for conspicuous show and even an expression of philosophy.
See also subsistance gardening, the art and craft of growing plants,
considered as a circumscribed form of individual agriculture.
Though cultivation of plants for food long predates history, the earliest evidence for ornamental gardens is seen in Egyptian tomb paintings of the 1500s BC; they depict lotus ponds surrounded by rows of acacias and palms. The other ancient gardening tradition is of
Persia: Darius the Great
was said to have had a "paradise garden" and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were renowned as a Wonder of the World.
Persian influences extended to post-Alexander's Greece: around 350 BC there were
gardens at the Academy of Athens, and
Theophrastus, who wrote on botany, was supposed to have inherited a garden from Aristotle.
Epicurus also had a garden where he walked and taught, and bequeathed it to
Hermarchus of
Mytilene. Alciphron also mentions
private gardens.
The most influential ancient gardens in the western world were the Ptolemy's gardens at Alexandria and the gardening tradition
brought to Rome by Lucullus. Wall paintings in Pompeii attest to elaborate development later, and the wealthiest of Romans built enormous
gardens, many of whose ruins are still to be seen, such as at Hadrian's Villa.
Byzantium and Moorish Spain kept garden traditions alive after the 4th century. By this time a separate gardening tradition
had arisen in China, which was transmitted to Japan, where it developed into aristocratic miniature landscapes centered on ponds
and separately into the severe Zen gardens of temples.
In Europe, gardening revived in Languedoc and the Ile-de-France in the 13th century, and in the Italian villa gardens of the
early Renaissance. French parterres developed at the end of the 16th century and reached high development under Andre le Notre. English landscape gardens opened a new perspective in the 18th
century. The 19th century saw a welter of historical revivals and Romantic cottage-inspired gardening.
20th century gardening expanded into city planning.
(this introductory capsule of world gardening needs improvement)
The historical development of garden styles
- Royalty, most likely that found in Egypt, was probably also very instrumental in the development of the garden, much as royalty and the privileged
classes throughout the centuries have continued to influence the design and actualization of gardens.
- Assyrian/Persian paradise garden or enclosed
hunting-orchard.
- Hellenistic and Roman
garden.
- Byzantine/Turkish gardens.
- The developed Persian
garden, which evolved into the Mughal gardens of India.
- Islamic Spanish
gardens.
- Medieval enclosed garden of northern Europe Hortus inclusus.
- Terraced Italian garden
of the Renaissance.
- Baroque French gardens of
Le Notre and followers.
- English Landscape
garden and its imitators, called 'English gardens.'
- 'Hill-and-Pond' gardens of China and Japan.
- Zen garden of Japan.
- Romantic idealized English cottage garden.
- Contemporary gardens.
Ancient Near East
Assyrian hunting parks and Persian paradise gardens
Egyptian temple courts
Hellenistic and Roman gardens
Islamic gardens
Renaissance gardens
Italian gardens
French gardens
Anglo-Dutch gardens
Landscape gardens
Romantic gardens
Picturesque gardens
'Gardenesque' gardens
Pattern gardens: revived parterres
"Wild" gardens and herbaceous borders
The books of William Robinson describing his own "wild"
gardening at Gravetye Manor, Sussex, and the sentimental picture of a rosy, idealized "cottage garden" of the kind pictured by
Kate Greenaway, which had scarcely existed historically, both
influenced the development of the mixed herbaceous borders that were advocated by Gertrude Jekyll from the 1890s. Her plantings, which mixed shrubs with perennial and annual plants and
bulbs in deep beds within more formal structures of terraces and stairs designed by Edwin Lutyens, set the model for high-style, high-maintenance gardening until the Second World War. Vita Sackville-West's garden at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent is the most famous and influential garden of this last blossoming of
romantic style, publicized by the gardener's own gardening column in The
Observer. In the last quarter of the 20th century, less structured Wildlife gardening emphasized the ecological framework of
similar gardens using native plants.
Modern gardens
The 'Gardenesque' style of English garden design evolved during the 1820's from Humphrey Repton's Picturesque or 'Mixed'
style, largely under the impetus of J. C. Loudon, who invented the term.
In a Gardenesque plan, all the trees, shrubs and other plants are positioned and managed in such a way that the character of
each plant can be displayed to its full potential. With the spread of botany as a suitable avocation for the enlightened, the
Gardenesque tended to emphasize botanical curiosities and a collector's approach. New plant material that would have seemed
bizarre and alien in earlier gardening found settings: Pampas grass from Argentina and Monkey-puzzle trees. Winding paths linked
scattered plantings. The Gardenesque approach involved the creation of small-scale landscapes, dotted with features and
vignettes, to promote beauty of detail, variety and mystery, sometimes to the detriment of coherence. Artificial mounds helped to
stage groupings of shrubs, and island
beds became prominent features.
Historic gardeners
The following names, roughly in historical order, made contributions that affected the history of gardens, whether as
botanist explorers, designers, garden-makers, or writers. Further information on them will be found under their individual
entries.
Notable historic gardens
References
- J. S. Berrall, The
Garden: An Illustrated History
- E. Hyams A History of Gardens and
Gardening (1971)
- Maureen Carroll, Earthly Paradises: Ancient Gardens in History and Archaeology (London, British Museum Press 2003)
External links
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