History of gardens

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 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 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 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.

• Theophrastus
• Lucullus
• Tiberius
• Pliny
• John Tradescant
• Carolus Clusius
• Andre le Notre
• William Kent
• Lancelot "Capability" Brown
• A. J. Downing
• Frederick Law Olmstead
• Gertrude Jekyll
• Vita Sackville-West
• Russell Page
• Luis Barragan

Notable historic gardens

• Alhambra
• Bomarzo
• Central Park
• Chateau Fontainebleau
• Chatsworth
• Dumbarton Oaks
• Ermenonville
• Fountains Abbey
• Giverny
• Hadrian's Villa
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Het Loo
• Hidcote
• Marly-le-Roi
• Sissinghurst Castle
• Stourhead
• Stowe
• Vaux-le-Vicomte
• Villa d'Este
• Chateau Villandry
• Versailles

References