Gardening
Gardening is the process of growing plants for their vegetables, fruits, flowers, herbs, or ornamental purposes within a designated space. Gardens fulfill a wide assortment of purposes, notably the production of aesthetically pleasing areas, medicines, cosmetics, dyes, foods, poisons, wildlife habitats, and saleable goods. People often partake in gardening for its therapeutic, health, educational, cultural, philosophical, environmental, and religious benefits.
Gardening varies in scale from the 800 hectare Versailles gardens down to container gardens grown inside. Gardens take many forms; some only contain one type of plant, while others involve a complex assortment of plants with no particular order.
Gardening can be difficult to differentiate from farming. They are most easily differentiated based on their primary objectives. Farming prioritizes saleable goods and may include livestock production, whereas gardening often prioritizes aesthetics and leisure. As it pertains to food production, gardening generally happens on a much smaller scale with the intent of personal or community consumption. There are cultures which do not differentiate between farming and gardening. This is primarily because subsistence agriculture has been the main method of farming throughout its 12,000 year history and is virtually indistinguishable from gardening.
Prehistory
Plant domestication is seen as the birth of agriculture. However, it is arguably preceded by a very long history of gardening wild plants. While the 12,000-year-old date is the commonly accepted timeline describing plant domestication, there is now evidence from the Ohalo II hunter-gatherer site showing earlier signs of disturbing the soil and cultivation of pre-domesticated crop species. This evidence pushes early stage plant domestication to 23,000 years ago which aligns with research done by Allaby showing slight selection pressure of desirable traits in Southwest Asian cereals. Despite not qualifying as plant domestication, many archaeological studies are pushing the potential date of hominin selective ecosystem disturbance back up to 125,000 years ago. Much of these early recorded ecosystem disturbances were made through hominin use of fire, which dates back to 1.5 Mya. This anthropogenic ecosystem disturbance may be the origin of gardening.Every hunter-gatherer society has developed a niche of some sort, allowing them to thrive or even just survive amongst their environments. Many of these prehistoric hunter-gatherers had constructed a niche allowing for easier access to, or a higher amount of, edible plant species. This shift from hunting and gathering to increasingly modifying the environment in a way which produces an abundance of edible plant species marks the beginning of gardening. One of the most documented hominin niches is the use of off-site fire. When done intentionally, this is often called forest gardening or fire stick farming in Australia. The modern study of fire ecology describes the many benefits that off-site fires may have granted these early humans. Some of these agroecological practices have been well documented and studied during colonial contact. However, they are vastly under represented in research done on early hominin fire use. Based on current research, it is evident that these niches developed separately in different societies across different times and locations. Many of the Indigenous gardening methods were and still are often overlooked by colonizers due to the lack of resemblance to western gardens with well-defined borders and non-naturalized plant species.
The Americas
There are long traditions of gardening within Indigenous societies spanning from the northernmost parts of Canada down to the southernmost tip of Chile and Argentina. The Arctic and Subarctic societies relied primarily on hunting and fishing due to the harsh climate, although they have been known to collectively use at least 311 different plants as foods or medicines. The substantial knowledge and use of these plants along with the communal harvesting sites and emphasis on reciprocity between humans and plants indicates a basic level of gardening. Similarly, the Fuegian Indigenous groups in South America had developed seemingly comparable niches due to a similar tundra ecosystem. While there are very few studies on the Fuegians, Darwin mentioned wild edible plants such as fungi, kelp, and wild celery growing next to the various Fuegian shelters.Horticulture plays a relatively small role in these northern and southern tundra inhabitants compared with Indigenous societies in grassland and forest ecosystems. From the boreal forests of Canada to the temperate forests and grasslands of Chile and Argentina, different communities have developed food production niches. These include the use of fire for ecosystem maintenance and resetting successional sequences, the sowing of wild annuals, the sowing of domesticated annuals, creating berry patches and orchards, manipulation of plants to encourage desired traits, and landscape modification to encourage plant and animal growth. These modified landscapes as recorded by early American philosophers such as Thoreau, and Emmerson were described as exhibiting pristine beauty. Indigenous gardens such as forest gardens therefore do not only serve as a producer of foods, medicines, or materials, but also pleasant aesthetics.
Many popular crops originate from pre-colonial Indigenous agricultural societies. Some of these include maize, quinoa, common bean, peanut, pumpkin, squash, pepper, tomato, cassava, potato, blueberry, cactus pear, cashew, papaya, pineapple, strawberry, cacao, sunflower, cotton, Pará rubber, and tobacco.
History
Ancient times
, a forest-based food production system, is the world's oldest form of gardening.After the emergence of the first civilizations, wealthy individuals began to create gardens for aesthetic purposes. Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings from the New Kingdom provide some of the earliest physical evidence of ornamental horticulture and landscape design; they depict lotus ponds surrounded by symmetrical rows of acacias and palms. A notable example of ancient ornamental gardens was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World —while ancient Rome had dozens of gardens.
Wealthy ancient Egyptians used gardens to provide shade. Egyptians associated trees and gardens with gods, believing that their deities were pleased by gardens. Gardens in ancient Egypt were often surrounded by walls with trees planted in rows. Among the most popular species planted were date palms, sycamores, fig trees, nut trees, and willows. These gardens were a sign of higher socioeconomic status. In addition, wealthy ancient Egyptians grew vineyards, as wine was a sign of the higher social classes. Roses, poppies, daisies and irises could all also be found in the gardens of the Egyptians.
Assyria was renowned for its beautiful gardens. These tended to be wide and large, some of them used for hunting game, rather like a game reserve today, and others as leisure gardens. Cypresses and palms were some of the most frequently planted types of trees.
Gardens were also available in Kush. In Musawwarat es-Sufra, the Great Enclosure, dated to the 3rd century BC, included splendid gardens.
Ancient Roman gardens were laid out with hedges and vines and contained a wide variety of flowers—acanthus, cornflowers, crocus, cyclamen, hyacinth, iris, ivy, lavender, lilies, myrtle, narcissus, poppy, rosemary and violets—as well as statues and sculptures. Flower beds were popular in the courtyards of rich Romans.
The Middle Ages
The Middle Ages represent a period of decline in gardens for aesthetic purposes. After the fall of Rome, gardening was done for the purpose of growing medicinal herbs and/or decorating church altars. Monasteries carried on a tradition of garden design and intense horticultural techniques during the medieval period in Europe.Generally, monastic garden types consisted of kitchen gardens, infirmary gardens, cemetery orchards, cloister garths and vineyards. Individual monasteries might also have had a "green court", a plot of grass and trees where horses could graze, as well as a cellarer's garden or private gardens for obedientiaries, monks who held specific posts within the monastery.
Islamic gardens were built after the model of Persian gardens, and they were usually enclosed by walls and divided into four by watercourses. Commonly, the centre of the garden would have a reflecting pool or pavilion. Specific to the Islamic gardens are the mosaics and glazed tiles used to decorate the rills and fountains that were built in these gardens.
By the late 13th century, rich Europeans began to grow gardens for leisure and medicinal herbs and vegetables. They surrounded the gardens by walls to protect them from animals and to provide seclusion. During the next two centuries, Europeans started planting lawns and raising flowerbeds and trellises of roses. Fruit trees were common in these gardens, and also in some, there were turf seats. At the same time, the gardens in the monasteries were a place to grow flowers and medicinal herbs, but they were also a space where the monks could enjoy nature and relax.
The gardens in the 16th and 17th centuries were symmetric, proportioned and balanced with a more classical appearance. Most of these gardens were built around a central axis, and they were divided into different parts by hedges. Commonly, gardens had flowerbeds laid out in squares and separated by gravel paths.
Gardens during the Renaissance were adorned with sculptures, topiary and fountains. In the 17th century, knot gardens became popular along with the hedge mazes. By this time, Europeans started planting new flowers such as tulips, marigolds and sunflowers.
Cottage gardens
s, which emerged in Elizabethan times, appear to have originated as a local source for herbs and fruits. One theory is that they arose out of the Black Death of the 1340s, when the death of so many laborers made land available for small cottages with personal gardens. According to the late 19th-century legend of origin, These gardens were originally created by the workers who lived in the cottages of the villages to provide them with food and herbs, with flowers planted among them for decoration. Farm workers were provided with cottages that had architectural quality set in a small garden—about —where they could grow food and keep pigs and chickens.Authentic gardens of the yeoman cottager would have included a beehive and livestock, and frequently a pig and sty, along with a well. The peasant cottager of medieval times was more interested in meat than flowers, with herbs grown for medicinal use rather than for their beauty. By Elizabethan times, there was more prosperity, and thus more room to grow flowers. Even the early cottage garden flowers typically had their practical use—violets were spread on the floor ; calendulas and primroses were both attractive and used in cooking. Others, such as sweet William and hollyhocks, were grown entirely for their beauty.