Take a journey through the history of gardening and explore its evolution, from ancient practices to modern techniques that have shaped our green spaces today.
Gardening involves cultivating plants for practical, aesthetic, or recreational purposes, involving activities like planting, watering, fertilizing, pruning, and harvesting. It has a long history dating back 23,000 years, with modern gardeners focusing on designing gardens in cities and evolving aesthetics to enhance garden design choices.
Introduction:
Cultivating, an immortal pursuit, has molded scenes, societies, and social orders for millennia. Beginning in antiquated civic establishments, it has developed close by mankind, giving food, magnificence, and comfort to ages. This article investigates the rich embroidered artwork of cultivating history, revealing its beginnings, achievements, and getting through inheritance.
The enclosure of outdoor space likely began around 10,000 BC, with the word “garden” and “yard” derived from the Old English “geard”. Wealthy citizens began creating gardens for aesthetic purposes, with Egyptian tomb paintings and Persian gardens being influential. The most influential ancient gardens in the western world were those of Ptolemy in Alexandria and Lucullus in Rome.
The Italian Renaissance garden and the Spanish Crown built public parks in the 16th century. In the 19th century, historical revivals and Romantic cottage-inspired gardening emerged, with modernism influencing the design of public parks and landscapes.
Ancient History Of Gardening
Ancient Egyptian gardens were established for aesthetic purposes around 2000 BC, focusing on symmetry and function. Similar gardens emerged in the Middle East and China, where plants were chosen for their symbolism rather than beauty. The goal was to replicate wider natural landscapes in miniature, encompassing the beauty of nature as a whole. These practices were influenced by Taoism, which valued balance and harmony over beauty or displays of wealth.
The first large kingdoms we know of were in the deserts of Persia, Egypt, and Babylon, where the affluent constructed elaborate gardens. These gardens were filled with exotic tropical plants, often tended to thrive in the dry, desert conditions. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are the most famous, built by King Nebuchadnezzar to cheer up his homesick bride, Amytis, who had come to Babylon to be married in a political arrangement.
The earliest gardens were grown for practical reasons, but as civilization developed, an upper class enjoyed purely decorative gardens and had servants or slaves to do the gardening for them. The food forest, an ancient garden style, originated in tropical regions, incorporating edible plants, trees, shrubs, and vines to promote biodiversity, sustainability, soil fertility, and resilience to environmental stressors, replicating the structure and function of natural forests.
Gardening In Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt and ancient Iraq were rich in gardens, with rich people creating enclosed, row-planted gardens for shade and religious significance. The Egyptians grew various trees, including sycamores, date palms, fig trees, nut trees, pomegranate trees, willows, vineyards, and flowers like roses, poppies, irises, daisies, and cornflowers. They also had rectangular ponds and sometimes fish-stocked gardens.
The Assyrians, who ruled the Middle East from 900 BC to 612 BC, enjoyed gardens, creating large hunting parks and pleasure gardens irrigated by water canals. The Babylonians, after the destruction of the Assyrian Empire, built formal gardens with man-powered pumps. The Persians, who created another empire in 539, were skilled gardeners, building underground aqueducts called qanats to bring water to their gardens without evaporating on the way.
Greek gardens were not great gardeners, but they occasionally planted trees for shade around temples and public places. They developed plantations, grape plantations, and vegetable nurseries. Roman nurseries were experts of shrubbery, embellished with sculptures and models, fences, plants, and a wide assortment of blossoms.Wealthy Romans built houses with courtyards, colonnaded porches, pools, fountains, and flower beds. After conquering Britain, they introduced new plants like roses, leeks, turnips, plums, and cabbages.
Gardening In The Middle Ages
After Rome’s fall, Western Europe experienced a decline in gardening, but the church continued to create gardens for herbs and flowers. The Arabs conquered Persia in the 7th century and created Islamic gardens with walls, watercourses, and fruit trees. In the 8th century, Arabs conquered Spain, growing various trees and flowers. By the 13th century, the rich began growing gardens for pleasure and medicinal herbs, with walled enclosures for protection. Monasteries also grew gardens for medicinal purposes.
Classic Gardening
Classic gardening, characterized by formal layouts, symmetry, and geometric shapes, thrived during the Renaissance and Baroque periods in Europe, showcasing the power and prestige of the ruling elite. After the fall of the Roman Empire, utilitarian gardening shifted to monks growing herbs and flowers. The Renaissance revitalized science and culture, leading to a return to luxury gardening among the middle and wealthy classes.
16th And 17th Century Gardening
In the 16th century, the ideas of ancient Greece and Rome were revived, influencing gardening concepts. Symmetry, proportion, and balance became crucial, with gardens often arranged in grid patterns with a central axis and hedges. Flowerbeds were often in squares separated by gravel paths. Gardens were adorned with sculptures, fountains, topiary, water jokes, water organs, grottoes, and knot gardens.
Intricate patterns like knots were created by planting boxes of box and herbs like lavender. During the 16th and 17th centuries, European gardening ideas underwent a significant shift, introducing new plants like tulips, marigolds, sunflowers, horse chestnut, potatoes, and tomatoes.
18th Century Gardening
In the early 18th century, people rebelled against formal gardens and preferred a more natural style. Gardens often featured shrubberies, grottoes, pavilions, bridges, and follies. Famous gardeners of the time, including William Kent and Charles Bridgeman, designed gardens at Chiswick and Rousham, while Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown aimed to improve nature rather than rework it.
Humphry Repton, a famous gardener, also contributed to the shift towards formal gardens. The Society of Gardeners was founded in 1725 in England, and public gardens were created in London. However, pleasure gardens were still reserved for the upper and middle classes. In the North American colonies, the wealthy began creating pleasure gardens, but Americans preferred more formal gardens.
19th Century Gardening History
The Horticultural Society, established in 1804, became a royal society in 1861. Dr. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward discovered that plants formed micro-climates by sealing them under glass, enabling global transportation. New plants like monkey puzzle and Chile pine were introduced, and the lawn mower was invented in 1830. Gardeners built greenhouses, conservatories, gardenesque styles, and rock gardens. Famous gardeners contributed to garden development. As cities grew, public parks were built to improve living conditions.
20th Century Gardening
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the arts and crafts movement influenced gardeners, idealizing old-fashioned cottage gardens with trellises of flowers and neat hedges. Famous gardeners included Gertrude Jekyll, Sir Edward Lutyens, Frederick Gibberd, Sylvia Crowe, Russell Page, Harold Peto, and Lawrence Johnston. Modernism emerged in architecture and gardening, advocating for uncluttered gardens. German engineer Andreas Stihl developed the chain saw and hover mower in 1926 and 1963, respectively.
Modern Gardening
Modern gardening, influenced by industrialization, urbanization, and scientific advancements, emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries, prioritizing sustainability, biodiversity, and ecological harmony. In America, it was initially about sustenance until suburban development focused on decorative flowers. In the 1990s, container gardening evolved with various annual varieties and customizable designs.
The early history of gardening is largely entangled with the history of agriculture, with gardens being mainly ornamental and the kitchen garden being the first priority. The Renaissance in Europe saw the Italian garden dominate the French formal garden, while the English landscape garden developed into the largest new gardens in Europe. Gardening can be considered an aesthetic expression of beauty through art and nature, a display of taste or style in civilized life, an expression of an individual’s or culture’s philosophy, and sometimes as a display of private status or national pride.
In the 20th century, gardening trends emerged as a reaction to the events of the 1900s and the century before. Opponents of mass production created cottage gardens to hark back to picturesque, natural gardens and individual craftsmanship. Modernist gardens embraced a harmony between indoor and outdoor space, using minimalist design principles and materials from architecture. As incomes increased and urban living increased, gardening became a common hobby open to all.
In the 21st hundred years, cultivating has become more available, and cutting edge landscapers are working determinedly to keep up with this availability. New trends point to inclusivity, with indoor gardening and low maintenance gardens opening up spaces for anyone to join in. The rise of climate change has led next-generation gardeners to consider the environment in their gardening practices.
Who Invented The Garden
The garden, a concept dating back to ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, has been cultivated for sustenance, beauty, and ritualistic purposes. Early humans developed formal garden designs and techniques, though the exact inventor remains unknown. Evidence of cultivated green spaces can be found in various regions.
The Country Where Gardening First Started:
Gardening likely originated in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica as early human populations transitioned from nomadic lifestyles to settled agricultural societies. Evidence of early gardening practices is found in these regions, indicating gardening was a fundamental aspect of human civilization across diverse cultures and environments.
Conclusion:
The history of gardening demonstrates the long-standing connection between humans and nature, inspiring and sustaining us through its diverse expressions in modern times.
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