gardening, the laying out and care of a plot of ground devoted partially or wholly to the growing of plants such as flowers, herbs, or vegetables.
Gardening can be considered both as an art, concerned with arranging plants harmoniously in their surroundings, and as a science, encompassing the principles and techniques of plant cultivation. Because plants are often grown in conditions markedly different from those of their natural environment, it is necessary to apply to their cultivation techniques derived from plant physiology, chemistry, and botany, modified by the experience of the planter. The basic principles involved in growing plants are the same in all parts of the world, but the practice naturally needs much adaptation to local conditions.
For the main history of garden development, see the article garden and landscape design: Historical development.
Gardening in its ornamental sense needs a certain level of civilization before it can flourish. Wherever that level has been attained, in all parts of the world and at all periods, people have made efforts to shape their environment into an attractive display. The instinct and even enthusiasm for gardening thus appear to arise from some primitive response to nature, engendering a wish to produce growth and harmony in a creative partnership with it.
It is possible to be merely an admiring spectator of gardens. However, most people who cultivate a domestic plot also derive satisfaction from involvement in the processes of tending plants. They find that the necessary attention to the seasonal changes, and to the myriad small “events” in any shrubbery or herbaceous border, improves their understanding and appreciation of gardens in general.
A phenomenal upsurge of interest in gardening began in Western countries after World War II. A lawn with flower beds and perhaps a vegetable patch has become a sought-after advantage to home ownership. The increased interest produced an unprecedented expansion of business among horticultural suppliers, nurseries, garden centres, and seedsmen. Books, journals, and newspaper columns on garden practice have found an eager readership, while television and radio programs on the subject have achieved a dedicated following.
Several reasons for this expansion suggest themselves. Increased leisure in the industrial nations gives more people the opportunity to enjoy this relaxing pursuit. The increased public appetite for self-sufficiency in basic skills also encourages people to take up the spade. In the kitchen, the homegrown potato or ear of sweet corn rewards the gardener with a sense of achievement, as well as with flavour superior to that of store-bought produce. An increased awareness of threats to the natural environment and the drabness of many inner cities stir some people to cultivate the greenery and colour around their own doorsteps. The bustle of 20th-century life leads more individuals to rediscover the age-old tranquillity of gardens.
The attractions of gardening are many and various and, to a degree perhaps unique among the arts and crafts, may be experienced by any age group and at all levels of ambition. At its most elemental, but not least valuable, the gardening experience begins with the child’s wonder that a packet of seeds will produce a charming festival of colour. At the adult level, it can be as simple as helping to raise a good and edible carrot, and it can give rise to almost parental pride. At higher levels of appreciation, it involves an understanding of the complexity of the gardening process, equivalent to a chess game with nature, because the variables are so many.
The gardening experience may involve visiting some of the world’s great gardens at different seasons to see the relation of individual groups of plants, trees, and shrubs to the whole design; to study the positioning of plants in terms of their colour, texture, and weight of leaf or blossom; and to appreciate the use of special features such as ponds or watercourses, pavilions, or rockeries. Garden visiting on an international scale provides an opportunity to understand the broad cultural influences, as well as the variations in climate and soil, that have resulted in so many different approaches to garden making.
The appeal of gardening is thus multifaceted and wide in range. The garden is often the only place where someone without special training can exercise creative impulses as designer, artist, technician, and scientific observer. In addition, many find it a relaxing and therapeutic pursuit. It is not surprising that the garden, accorded respect as a part of nature and a place of contemplation, holds a special place in the spiritual life of many.
Practical and spiritual aspects of gardening are shown in an impressive body of literature. In Western countries manuals of instruction date to classical Greece and Rome. Images of plants and gardens are profuse in the works of the major poets, from Virgil to Shakespeare, and on to some of the moderns.
Another of gardening’s attractions is that up to a certain level it is a simple craft to learn. The beginner can produce pleasing results without the exacting studies and practice required by, for example, painting or music. Gardens are also forgiving to the inexperienced to a certain degree. Nature’s exuberance will cover up minor errors or short periods of neglect, so gardening is an art practiced in a relatively nonjudgmental atmosphere. While tolerant in many respects, nature does, however, present firm reminders that all gardening takes place within a framework of natural law; and one important aspect of the study of the craft is to learn which of these primal rules are imperatives and which may be stretched.
Large areas of gardening development and mastery have concentrated on persuading plants to achieve what they would not have done if left in the wild and therefore “natural” state. Gardens at all times have been created through a good deal of control and what might be called interference. The gardener attends to a number of basic processes: combating weeds and pests; using space to allay the competition between plants; attending to feeding, watering, and pruning; and conditioning the soil. Above this fundamental level, the gardener assesses and accommodates the unique complex of temperature, wind, rainfall, sunlight, and shade found within his own garden boundaries. A major part of the fascination of gardening is that in problems and potential no one garden is quite like another; and it is in finding the most imaginative solutions to challenges that the gardener demonstrates artistry and finds the subtler levels of satisfaction.
Different aesthetics require different balances between controlling nature and cooperating with its requirements. The degree of control depends on the gardener’s objective, the theme and identity he is aiming to create. For example, the English wild woodland style of gardening in the mid-19th century dispensed with controls after planting, and any interference, such as pruning, would have been misplaced. At the other extreme is the Japanese dry-landscape garden, beautifully composed of rock and raked pebbles. The artistic control in this type of garden is so firm and refined that the intrusion of a single “natural” weed would spoil the effect.
The need for cooperation with nature is probably most felt by the amateur gardener in choosing the plants he wants to grow. The range of plants available to the modern gardener is remarkably rich, and new varieties are constantly being offered by nurseries. Most of the shrubs and flowers used in the Western world are descendants of plants imported from other countries. Because they are nonnative, they present the gardener with some of his most interesting problems but also with the possibility of an enhanced display. Plants that originated in subtropical regions, for example, are naturally more sensitive to frost. Some, like rhododendrons or azaleas, originated in an acid soil, mainly composed of leaf mold. Consequently, they will not thrive in a chalky or an alkaline soil. Plant breeding continues to improve the adaptability of such exotic plants, but the more closely the new habitat resembles the original, the better the plant will flourish. Manuals offer solutions to most such problems, and the true gardener will always enjoy finding his own. In such experiments, he may best experience his work as part of the historical tradition of gardening.
Western gardening had its origins in Egypt some 4,000 years ago. As the style spread, it was changed and adapted to different localities and climates, but its essentials remained those of disciplined lines and groupings of plants, usually in walled enclosures. Gardening was introduced into Europe through the expansion of Roman rule and, second, by way of the spread of Islam into Spain. Though clear evidence is lacking, it is presumed that Roman villas outside the confines of Italy contained native and imported plants, hedges, fruit trees, and vines, in addition to herbs for medicinal and culinary purposes.
In medieval times the monasteries were the main repositories of gardening knowledge and the important herbal lore. Though little is certainly known about the design and content of the monastic garden, it probably consisted of a walled courtyard built around a well or an arbour, with colour provided by flowers (some of which, including roses and lilies, served as ecclesiastical symbols), all of which maintained the ancient idea of the garden as a place of contemplation.
The earliest account of gardening in English, The Feate of Gardening, dating from about 1400, mentions the use of more than 100 plants, with instructions on sowing, planting, and grafting of trees and advice on cultivation of herbs such as parsley, sage, fennel, thyme, camomile, and saffron. The vegetables mentioned include turnip, spinach, leek, lettuce, and garlic.
Early gardening was largely for utility. The emergence of the garden as a form of creative display properly began in the 16th century. The Renaissance, with its increased prosperity, brought an upsurge of curiosity about the natural world and, incidentally, stirred interest in composing harmonious forms in the garden.
This awakening took especially firm root in Elizabethan England, which notably developed the idea that gardens were for enjoyment and delight. Echoing the Renaissance outlook, the mood of the period was one of exuberance in gardening, seen in the somewhat playful arrangements of Tudor times, with mazes, painted statuary, and knot gardens (consisting of beds in which various types of plants were separated by dwarf hedges). Flowers began to appear profusely in paintings and, as mentioned above, were used by poets in their verbal images.
This enthusiasm was accompanied by an earnest search for knowledge, and the period saw the birth of botanical science. A leading figure in this work was Carolus Clusius (Charles de l’Écluse), whose botanical skills and introduction of the tulip and other bulbous plants to the botanical gardens at Leiden, Netherlands, laid the foundation for Dutch prominence in international horticulture. The earliest botanical garden was that of Pisa (1543), followed by that of Padua (1545). The first in England was founded at Oxford in 1621, followed by Scotland’s first, at Edinburgh, in 1667. The gardens at Kew, near London, were founded almost a century later, in 1759. These centres of experiment and learning have contributed greatly to the art and science of horticulture.
The advances from the simple medieval style were marked and rapid at this time. The English statesman and scholar Francis Bacon could already, by 1625, advance a sophisticated and almost modern conception of the garden in his essay “On Gardens.” He saw it as a place that should be planted for year-round enjoyment, offering a wide range of experiences through colour, form and scent, exercise and repose. The flower garden, already well established by the early 17th century, was set against a background of tall, clipped hedges and neatly scythed lawns. The taste of the time, as contemporary lists show, was for perfumed varieties such as carnations, lavender, sweet marjoram, musk roses, and poppies.
As interest in gardening developed in Europe, the new trade of nurseryman was established, and the trade became highly important to the spread of knowledge and materials. By the end of the 17th century, nurserymen were relatively numerous in England, France, and the Low Countries, with keen customers among the nobility and gentry for all the exotica they could provide. The catalog of the Tradescant family’s private botanical garden in London listed 1,600 plants in 1656. A number of them had been brought back by the family from visits to Virginia. These early exotica from the New World included now familiar plants such as the Michaelmas daisy, the Virginia creeper, hamamelis, goldenrod, the first perennial lupine, and such fine autumn-colouring trees as liquidambar and the staghorn sumac. The work of the nurserymen thus spread new plants more widely and, as breeding skills developed, contributed to the acclimatizing of foreign imports.
The history of vegetables is imprecise. Though familiar types, including the radish, turnip, and onion, are known to have been in cultivation from early times, it is fairly supposed that they were meagre and would bear little clear resemblance to modern equivalents. The early range available to European gardens and, later, to those in America, included such native plants as kale, parsnips, and the Brussels sprout family, with peas and broad beans grown as field crops.
The Romans introduced the globe artichoke, leek, cucumber, cabbage, asparagus, and the Mediterranean strain of garlic to their imperial territory wherever these plants would flourish. Among plants imported to Europe from the Americas were the scarlet runner bean and tomato (both originally grown for ornament), corn (maize), and the vastly important potato. The numerous herbs in use were mostly native to European locations. One curiosity to the modern mind is that certain flowers, such as marigolds, violets, and primroses, were used as flavourings in the kitchen.
The cultivation of fruit trees was one of the most advanced skills and interests from the 16th century onward. Pride was taken in variety, and, judging by the opulent still-life paintings of the period, the quality was remarkably high. Among the challenges bravely taken up in the 17th century in northern Europe was the growing of orange and lemon trees, though this was done more for the pleasure of their evergreen qualities than for their fruit. The catalog of the British royal gardens in 1708 shows 14 varieties of cherry, 14 apricots, 58 kinds of peach and nectarine, 33 plums, eight figs, 23 vines, 29 pears, and numerous varieties of apple.
The most favoured style for great house gardens in Europe during much of this period derived from the influence of the French designer André Le Nôtre, creator of the gardens at Versailles. The French style represented an extreme of formality, with box-edged parterres (elaborate and geometrical beds) typically placed near the residence to provide an arranged view. Trees were grouped in neat plantations or in bold lines along avenues, with terraces and statuary carefully placed to emphasize the architectural symmetry of the grand manner. The widespread adoption of this style among the European nobility and gentry reflected the potency of French cultural influence at the time. It was also related, on a practical basis, to the limited availability of planting materials, especially those offering autumn and winter display.
The change to a more natural style of gardening came about when, in the latter part of the 18th century, the opinion arose among leading gardeners, particularly those of the English gentry, that the formal manner brought with it a certain monotony. The increasing importation of foreign plants also brought with it opportunities for a large-scale transformation.
The early importation of plants to Europe was managed through informal channels, following the increase in exploration and the spread of empires. Seeds and tubers were sent home by diplomats and missionaries, sea captains and travelers. An example of this type of collecting is afforded by Henry Compton, bishop of London, whose diocese included the American colonies. He was an avid collector, and he corresponded with like-minded experts in Europe and America and thus brought numerous fine plants to his exceptional garden in Fulham, west London. He also encouraged his missionaries to send home seeds. From one such source in Virginia came the Magnolia virginiana, the first magnolia to be cultivated. This was the beginning of what became known as the American garden, based upon magnolias, azaleas, and other woodland species.
As the appetite for exotica developed, plant collecting around the world became more systematized. Expeditions to foreign parts were organized and financed by nurserymen, botanical gardens, or syndicates of private gardeners. The botanist plant hunters thus sent out were exceptional and patient. They were required to endure long voyages and residence for up to several years in an often hostile environment. Their goal was to find the plant in flower, return in due season to collect seed, then see their delicate specimens back to Europe through varying climatic zones.
North America’s potential to yield countless new specimens was recognized early: the first book on American plants, published in London in 1577, was entitled Joyfull Newes out of the New Founde Worlde and was in itself a hint of the excited spirit of contemporary gardening. The jacaranda, flowering catalpa, and wisteria were among the finds made by Compton’s missionaries in the Carolinas. An early resident collector in North America was John Bartram, regarded as the founder of American botany. He settled on a farm near Philadelphia in 1728 and, in 30 years of collecting in the Alleghenies, Carolinas, and other areas of North America, sent some 200 important plants to British gardens in sufficient quantity that they became widespread there.
The extremely rich west coast of North America was not exploited by plant collectors until the early 19th century. The contemporary importance of such discoveries is suggested by the fact that, in their celebrated crossing of the American continent in 1804–06, Lewis and Clark found time to collect the seeds of Mahonia aquifolium and Symphoricarpos racemosus. Perhaps the most distinguished collector among an exceptional fraternity was David Douglas, one of the numerous Scotsmen who contributed to international botany. His expeditions to the North American Far West brought to Europe such important timber trees as the Douglas fir, the Sitka spruce, the Monterey pine, and a number of now familiar shrubs such as Garrya elliptica and Ribes sanguineum. The California annuals he discovered made a lasting impact on the colour of Western gardens. In the 19th century, plant collectors began to explore South America, where two Cornish brothers, William and Thomas Lobb, gained prominence. They are credited with carrying back to Europe the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana), native to the Andes mountains; the Berberis darwinii; and the Escallonia macrantha.
Collectors went to a number of countries in the 19th century, but the most important area was China. Its flora was more intact than that in the West, because the erosions of the Ice Age had been less severe for climatic reasons, and it had a long history of skilled gardening. Plant collection was difficult, however, because for many years the only foreigners allowed to travel within its borders were Jesuit priests. They aided botanists by sending many specimens to Paris and London. The first professional collector to live in China was William Kerr, who sent out 238 new plants. Real exploration of the interior did not begin until the 1840s. China, Japan, and the Himalayas produced unparalleled riches in rhododendrons, azaleas, flowering cherries, ornamental maples, roses, lilies, primulas, poppies, kerrias, and quinces.
The conditions for transporting plants from such distances had been much improved by Nathaniel B. Ward’s invention of the wardian case, an airtight glass box that protected the plants from sea air and harsh climate. Gradually almost all regions and countries were visited, and new plants and their progeny were dispersed around the Western world. And still the search for new specimens continues.
By the early 19th century, with the expansion of the horticultural trade, gardening had become international in scope. Numerous handbooks spread knowledge. The founding of new garden and botanical societies, such as the London (later Royal) Horticultural Society, helped to increase interest, encourage science, and raise standards. Such moves signaled the rise of the small leisure gardener; a floral retreat was no longer the sole property of the rich. It now extended from the manor to the small suburban garden.
Gardens in North America had generally been smaller and trimmer than their European counterparts, with box edgings and pleached trees (that is, lines of trees allowed to grow with branches interlaced to form a screen), as seen in the reconstructed gardens of Williamsburg, Virginia. The “natural” gardening style (known on the European continent as the English style), which had overtaken earlier formality, allowed wider use of plant varieties. This approach became the pervasive trend in the west, notably through the views of John Claudius Loudon, whose Encyclopaedia of Gardening (1822) set the pattern of domestic cultivation over a long period with a style known as Gardenesque. His style encouraged the individual qualities of garden elements while ensuring that together they made a harmonious blend.
The natural style was further enhanced by an English artist and landscape architect, Gertrude Jekyll. In her opinion, the first purpose of a garden is to give happiness and repose of mind. With experience derived from the richly floral cottage gardens of Surrey, she developed the idea of supporting plants with an architectural base and allowing them to grow in a free form, encouraging natural shape and creating harmonious relationships of colour.
The period saw much progress in garden equipment and supplies. Heated greenhouses had been in use since the late 17th century, and mass production led to great strides in nursery gardening. The modern, bladed lawn mower was first seen in a design of 1832; in more recent times the application of the jet-engine principle led to the hover mower. Fertilizer development was also important, from the discovery of superphosphate to the devising of modern kinds of foliar feeding.
In the second half of the 20th century, interest in gardening brought in new adherents in unprecedented numbers; they were advised and encouraged by numerous publications and by television and radio programs. Though the process was very gradual, domestic gardening became somewhat more adventurous. Among the more ambitious, designs took a multiplicity of forms, from the Japanese garden, producing an austere magic out of rock and pebble, to the other extreme of the wild country garden, virtually left to seed itself. Increasing numbers of professional designers at their best set high standards to emulate. But the art of gardening still depends on a simple empathy with the needs and nature of living things. Symbolic of this essential, the spade has remained much the same implement that it had been in medieval times.
The domestic garden can assume almost any identity the owner wishes within the limits of climate, materials, and means. The size of the plot is one of the main factors, deciding not only the scope but also the kind of display and usage. Limits on space near urban centres, as well as the wish to spend less time on upkeep, have tended to make modern gardens ever smaller. Paradoxically, this happens at a time when the variety of plants and hybrids has never been wider. The wise small gardener avoids the temptations of this banquet. Some of the most attractive miniature schemes, such as those seen in Japan or in some Western patio gardens, are effectively based on an austere simplicity of design and content, with a handful of plants given room to find their proper identities.
In the medium- to large-sized garden, the tradition generally continues of dividing the area to serve various purposes: a main ornamental section to enhance the residence and provide vistas; walkways and seating areas for recreation; a vegetable plot; a children’s play area; and features to catch the eye here and there. Because most gardens are mixed, the resulting style is a matter of emphasis rather than exclusive concentration on one aspect. It may be useful to review briefly the main garden types.
Though flower gardens in different countries may vary in the types of plants that are grown, the basic planning and principles are nearly the same, whether the gardens are formal or informal. Trees and shrubs are the mainstay of a well-designed flower garden. These permanent features are usually planned first, and the spaces for herbaceous plants, annuals, and bulbs are arranged around them. The range of flowering trees and shrubs is enormous. It is important, however, that such plants be appropriate to the areas they will occupy when mature. Thus it is of little use to plant a forest tree that will grow 100 feet (30 metres) high and 50 feet across in a small suburban front garden 30 feet square, but a narrow flowering cherry or redbud tree would be quite suitable.
Blending and contrast of colour as well as of forms are important aspects to consider in planning a garden. The older type of herbaceous border was designed to give a maximum display of colour in summer, but many gardeners now prefer to have flowers during the early spring as well, at the expense of some bare patches later. This is often done by planting early-flowering bulbs in groups toward the front. Mixed borders of flowering shrubs combined with herbaceous plants are also popular and do not require quite so much maintenance as the completely herbaceous border.
Groups of half-hardy annuals, which can withstand low night temperatures, may be planted at the end of spring to fill gaps left by the spring-flowering bulbs. The perpetual-flowering roses and some of the larger shrub roses look good toward the back of such a border, but the hybrid tea roses and the floribunda and polyantha roses are usually grown in separate rose beds or in a rose garden by themselves.
The informal woodland garden is the natural descendant of the shrubby “wilderness” of earlier times. The essence of the woodland garden is informality and naturalness. Paths curve rather than run straight and are of mulch or grass rather than pavement. Trees are thinned to allow enough light, particularly in the glades, but irregular groups may be left, and any mature tree of character can be a focal point. Plants are chosen largely from those that are woodlanders in their native countries: rhododendron, magnolia, pieris, and maple among the trees and shrubs; lily, daffodil, and snowdrop among the bulbs; primrose, hellebore, St.-John’s-wort, epimedium, and many others among the herbs.
Rock gardens are designed to look as if they are a natural part of a rocky hillside or slope. If rocks are added, they are generally laid on their larger edges, as in natural strata. A few large boulders usually look better than a number of small rocks. In a well-designed rock garden, rocks are arranged so that there are various exposures for sun-tolerant plants such as rockroses and for shade-tolerant plants such as primulas, which often do better in a cool, north-facing aspect. Many smaller perennial plants are available for filling spaces in vertical cracks among the rock faces.
The main rocks from which rock gardens are constructed are sandstone and limestone. Sandstone, less irregular and pitted generally, looks more restful and natural, but certain plants, notably most of the dianthuses, do best in limestone. Granite is generally regarded as too hard and unsuitable for the rock garden because it weathers very slowly.
