History of gardening
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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 subsistence [[gardening]], the art and craft of growing plants, considered as a circumscribed form of individual [[agriculture]].''
Though cultivation of [[plant]]s for food long predates [[history]], the earliest evidence for ornamental [[garden]]s is seen in [[Egypt]]ian [[tomb painting]]s of the [[1500s BC]]; they depict [[Egyptian lotus|lotus]] [[pond]]s surrounded by rows of [[acacia]]s and [[Palm tree|palm]]s. The other ancient gardening tradition is of [[Persians|Persia]]: [[Darius the Great]] was said to have had a "[[paradise garden]]" and the [[Hanging Gardens of Babylon]] were renowned as a [[Seven Wonders of the Ancient World|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 painting]]s 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, as well as the rise of [[flower garden]]s, which became dominant in home gardening in the 20th century.
20th century gardening expanded into city planning.
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==The historical development of garden styles==
===Ancient Near East===
* [[Hanging Gardens of Babylon]]
====Assyrian hunting parks and Persian paradise gardens====
* Assyrian/Persian [[paradise garden]] or enclosed hunting-orchard.
[[Image:Pond in a garden.jpg|thumb|Rectangular fishpond with ducks and [[lotus]] planted round with date palms and fruit trees, in a fresco from the Tomb of Nebamun, Thebes, 18th Dynasty]]
[[Image:FuneraryModel-Garden MetropolitanMuseum.png|thumb|A funerary model of a garden, dating to the [[Eleventh dynasty of Egypt]], circa 2009–1998 BC. Made of painted and gessoed wood, originally from [[Thebes]].]]
====Egyptian Gardens====
Gardens were much cherished in the egyptian times and were kept both for secular purposes and attached to temple compounds. Gardens in private homes and villas before the New Kingdom were mostly used for growing vegetables and located close to a canal or the river. However, in the New Kingdom they were often surrounded by walls and their purpose incorporated pleasure and beauty besides utility.
Garden produce made out an important part of foodstuff but flowers were also cultivated for use in garlands to wear at festive occasions and for medicinal purposes. While the poor kept a patch for growing vegetables, the rich people could afford gardens lined with sheltering trees and decorative pools with fish and waterfowl. There could be wooden structrures forming pergolas to support vines of grapes from which raisins and wine were produced. There could even be elaborate stone kiosks for ornamental reasons, with decorative statues.
Temple gardens had plots for cultivating special vegetables, plants or herbs considered sacred to a certain deity and which were required in rituals and offerings like lettuce to Min. Sacred groves and ornamental trees were planted in front of or near both cult temples and mortuary temples. As temples were representations of heaven and built as the actual home of the god, gardens were laid out according to the same principle. Avenues leading up to the entrance could be lined with trees, courtyards could hold small gardens and between temple buildings gardens with trees, vineyards, flowers and ponds were maintained.
The ancient Egyptian garden would have looked different to a modern viewer than a garden in our days. It would have seemed more like a collection of herbs or a patch of wild flowers, lacking the specially bred flowers of today. Flowers like the iris, chrysanthemum, lily and delphinium (blue), were certainly known to the ancients but do not feature much in garden scenes. Formal boquets seem to have been composed of mandrake, poppy, cornflower and or lotus and papyrus.
Due to the arid climate of Egypt, tending gardens meant constant attention and depended on irrigation. Skilled gardeners were employed by temples and households of the wealthy. Duties included planting, weeding, watering by means of a shaduf, pruning of fruit trees, digging the ground, harvesting the fruit etc.
===Hellenistic and Roman gardens===
* Hellenistic gardens.
It is curious that although the Egyptians and Romans both gardened with vigor, the Greeks did not own private gardens. They did put gardens around temples and they adorned walkways and roads with statues, but the ornate and pleasure gardens that demonstrated wealth in the other communities is seemingly absent. Part maybe that blank areas in the historic landscape were assumed just that : blank. No one bothered to look for pollen or evidence of gardens. Part maybe that the modern technology is only just emerging, but the predominance of knowledge is that they just did not bother with gardens.
[[Image:Ricostruzione del giardino della casa dei vetii di pompei (mostra al giardino di boboli, 2007) 01.JPG|thumb|250px|Reconstruction of the roman garden of the [[House of the Vettii]] in [[Pompeii]]]]
* [[Roman gardens]] had many characteristics in common with contemporary gardens. The garden was a place of peace and tranquillity, a refuge from urban life, and was invested with religious and symbolic meanings. Ornamental horticulture became highly developed during the development of Roman civilisation. The administrators of the Roman Empire (c.100 BC - AD 500) actively exchanged information on agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, hydraulics, and botany. Seeds and plants were widely shared. The Gardens of Lucullus (Horti Lucullani) on the Pincian Hill on the edge of Rome introduced the Persian garden to Europe, about 60 BC.
* [[Byzantine gardens]]
===Islamic gardens===
* [[Turkish gardens]]
* The developed [[Persian garden]], which evolved into the [[Mughal garden]]s of India.
* Islamic [[Spanish gardens]].
===Chinese and Japanese gardens===
{{see|Zen garden|Chinese garden}}
[[Image:Liuyuan.jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[Chinese scholar's rocks|Rock sculpture]] from the 'Lingering Garden' of [[Suzhou]], [[China]]]]
Both [[China|Chinese]] and [[Japan|Japanese]] garden design traditionally is intended to evoke the natural landscape of mountains and rivers. However, the intended viewpoint of the gardens differs: Chinese gardens were intended to be viewed from within the garden and are intended as a setting for everyday life. Japanese gardens, with a few exceptions, were intended to be viewed from within the house, sort of like a [[diorama]]. Additionally, Chinese gardens more often included a water feature, while Japanese gardens, set in a wetter climate, would often get by with the suggestion of water. (Such as sand or pebbles raked into a wave pattern.) Traditional Chinese gardens are also more likely to treat the plants in a naturalistic way, while traditional Japanese gardens might feature plants sheared into mountain shapes. This contrasts with the handling of stone elements: in a Japanese garden, stones are placed in groupings as part of the landscape, but in a Chinese garden, a particularly choice stone might even be placed on a pedestal in a prominent location so that it might be more easily appreciated.
===European gardens: Medieval ===
* [[Medieval gardening]]
* Medieval enclosed garden of northern Europe: ''[[hortus conclusus]]''.
====European gardens: Italian Renaissance====
* The [[Italian Renaissance]] inspired a revolution in gardening. Renaissance gardens were full of scenes from ancient mythology and other learned allusions. Water during this time was especially symbolic: it was associated with fertility and the abundance of nature.
* Terraced [[Italian garden]] of the Renaissance.
[[Image:VillaPetraia.gif|thumb|The Medici Villa Petraia, near Florence, laid out by [[Niccolò Tribolo]], epitomizes the Italian garden of the early Renaissance, before the grander architectural schemes of the 16th century]]
====European gardens: French Baroque====
[[Image:Andre-Le-Nostre1.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Portrait of André Le Nôtre (12 March 1613-15 September 1700) by Carlo Maratta]]
* Baroque French gardens of André Le Nôtre his and followers.
Characterized by a centrally positioned building, elaborate parterres, radiating axis, fountains, basins and canals.
Gardens of this typology are also designed with an interest in mathematics and science. Perspective is highly designed for to create a sense of power for the owner.
The [[Gardens of Versailles|Gardens of Versailles]] represent one of the finest examples of the French Baroque garden.
====European gardens: Anglo-Dutch gardens====
* Anglo-Dutch formalgardens
====Landscape gardens====
* English [[Landscape garden]] and its imitators, called '[[English garden]]s.'
====Romantic gardens====
====Picturesque gardens====
===='Gardenesque' gardens====
The 'Gardenesque' style of English garden design evolved during the 1820s from Humphry 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.
====Pattern gardens: revived parterres====
===="Wild" gardens and herbaceous borders====
The books of [[William Robinson (gardener)|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 Garden|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 [[ecology|ecological]] framework of similar gardens using native plants.
===Modern gardens===
* Romantic idealized English [[cottage garden]].
* Contemporary gardens.
==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.''
*[[Theophrastus]]
*[[Lucullus]]
*[[Tiberius]]
*[[Pliny the Elder]]
*[[Pliny the Younger]]
*[[John Tradescant the elder]] and [[John Tradescant the younger|his son of the same name]]
*[[Carolus Clusius]]
*[[Andre le Nôtre]]
*[[Thomas Hill]]
*[[John Evelyn]]
*[[George London]]
*[[Henry Wise]]
*[[William Kent]]
*[[Capability Brown|Lancelot "Capability" Brown]]
*[[Humphry Repton]]
*[[Andrew Jackson Downing]]
*[[Frederick Law Olmsted]]
*[[Loddiges|George Loddiges]]
*[[Giovanni Baptista Ferrari]]
*[[John Loudon]]
*[[Hotsukimaru]]
*[[Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell]]
*[[Peter Joseph Lenné]]
*[[Joseph Paxton]]
*[[Thomas Jefferson]]
*[[William Robinson (gardener)]]
*[[Gertrude Jekyll]]
*[[Constance Villiers-Stuart]]
*[[Lawrence Johnston]]
*[[Edwin Lutyens]]
*[[Vita Sackville-West]]
*[[Claude Monet]]
*[[Russell Page]]
*[[Luis Barragan]]
*[[Gustav Ammann]]
*[[Lawrence Halprin]]
*[[Roberto Burle Marx]]
*[[Sylvia Crowe]]
*[[Gerard Antoni Ciołek|Gerard Ciołek]] (1909-1966)
*[[Ihei Masatake]]
*[[Ihei Sannojo]]
==Notable historic gardens==
[[Image:Powerscourt - edit3.jpg|450px|thumb|right|The Italian garden at [[Powerscourt Estate]] in [[County Wicklow]], [[Ireland]].]]
===China===
* Gardens of [[Suzhou]]
* [[Summer Palace]]
===England===
* [[Blenheim Palace]]
* [[Chatsworth House#Chatsworth's garden|Chatsworth]]
* [[Fountains Abbey]]
* [[Hidcote Manor Garden]]
* [[Lost Gardens of Heligan]]
* [[Sissinghurst Castle]]
* [[Stourhead]]
* [[Stowe House]]
===France===
* [[Chateau Fontainebleau]]
* [[Chateau of Marly|Marly-le-Roi]]
* [[Chateau Villandry]]
* [[Ermenonville]]
* [[Giverny]]
* [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]]
*[[Vaux-le-Vicomte]]
===India===
* [[Shalimar Gardens]] ([[Jammu and Kashmir]])
* [[Vrindavan Garden]] ([[Mysore]])
* [[Mughal Garden]] ([[Rashtrapati Bhavan]],[[Delhi]])
===Iraq===
* [[Hanging Gardens of Babylon]]
===Ireland===
* [[Historic Cork Gardens]]
* [[Powerscourt Gardens]]
* [[Mount Usher Gardens]]
===Italy===
* [[Bomarzo]]
* [[Hadrian's Villa]]
* [[Villa d'Este]]
===Japan===
* [[Daisen-in]]
===Netherlands===
* [[Het Loo]]
===Pakistan===
* [[Shalimar Gardens (Lahore)]]
===Poland===
* [[Arkadia]]
* [[Baranów Sandomierski]]
* [[Krasiczyn]]
* [[Łazienki Park]], [[Warsaw]]
* [[Muskauer Park]]
* [[Nieborów]]
* [[Saxon Garden]], [[Warsaw]]
* [[Wilanow Palace|Wilanów]]
===Russia===
* [[Kuskovo]]
* [[Pavlovsk Garden|Pavlovsk]]
* [[Peterhof]]
* [[Summer Garden]]
===Spain===
* [[Alhambra]]
===Ukraine===
* [[Sofiówka]], Ukraine
===United States===
* [[Central Park]], New York City
* [[Dumbarton Oaks]]
* [[Longwood Gardens]]
==References==
*[[J. S. Berrall]]. ''The Garden: An Illustrated History''
*Ciolek, Gerard. "Ogrody polskie" [Gardens of Poland]. Revised edition of the 1954 publication under the same title, updated and expanded by Janusz Bogdanowski. Warszawa: Arkady (1978).
* Carroll, Maureen. "Earthly Paradises: Ancient Gardens in History and Archaeology" (London, British Museum Press 2003)
* Engel, David. ''Creating a Chinese Garden'', Timber Press, 1986.
*[[E. Hyams]]. ''A History of Gardens and Gardening'' (1971)
*[[Tom Turner]]. "Garden history: philosophy and design 2000 BC to 2000 AD" (Spon, London, 2005)
== See also ==
{{Portal|Gardening}}
*[[Garden design]]
*[[Landscape architecture]]
*[[Landscape Institute]]
*[[Museum of Garden History]]
* [[Australian Garden History Society]]
==External links==
* [http://www.gardendigest.com/timegl.htm Gardening History Timeline]
* [http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/egypt/default.html Horticulture in ancient Egypt]
* [http://www.gardens-of-tuscany.net Gardens of Tuscany]
* [http://www.sad4you.ru Gardens and Lanscape Design]
* [http://hcs.osu.edu/history/history/034.html History of Horticulture]
*[http://www.imagoromae.com/frmHtmlContents.aspx?id=garden&lang=EN G. Cetorelli - A. Corrao: Brief history of ancient garden]
*[http://www.imagoromae.com/public/ftp/fotoDiServizio/File/Web_Galleryes/Bracciale/Small/QTVR%20-%20Flash/Bracciale_low_out_swf.html A. Corrao: Interactive navigation of "The house of the golden bracelet from Pompei": a roman garden painted]
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