Temple Garlands and Country Gardens: Your Noble Heritage
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010Really, as a gardener we’ll find you considering buying garden forks from the UK or maybe marveling at some Bulldog garden spades — but of course, only over the majority of human history have we hit these heights. Trimmers and forks are comparatively new developments, but you probably already know, gardens themselves are as old as Man. What is now a popular pastime actually began over sixteen thousand years ago.
These early gardeners worked by a blend of practical reasons, spirituality, and pleasure. The necessary fruit and nut bearing trees as well as other food-bearing plants would mingle with pools for fish. Some of this was set aside, holy plants seeded and nurtured for use in religious ceremonies. Still other herbs, important to the priests, grew in locations away from the gardens. They weren’t the only tribe to design ancient farmsteads. Also active were the Assyrians, the Persians, to say nothing of the Babylonians, all of whom also incorporated building projects of significant scope into this landscaping. As you might predict, another civilization who practiced this would be the Romans — while the Greeks dedicated their efforts to the food potential of their farmland alone.
While we’ll admit they had no access to lawn rakes or garden forks, these civilizations had invented quite the selection of basic implements and garden accessories which were prototypical of the spades and hoes gardeners rely on nowadays. Gardeners put them together using stone, iron, copper, bronze… the eras of history match well to the raw materials in action. The chaos after Rome fell caused several civilizations to set down the simplistic garden fork and all the other garden tools — save for the priests, who cultivated some flowers and herbs. Next, the public once again cultivated exquisite gardens grown from herbs, flowers, and vegetables for enjoyment. This movement advanced up to the sixteenth century, by which time gardens had become much more formal and structured than hitherto. Many superb representations can be found as hedge mazes and knot gardens, drawn from dense textures and patterns. Rules like these are no longer mandatory, meaning there’s ultimately nothing to worry about — enjoy yourself, and don’t be embarrassed about hunting for tips how to fix some troublesome lawn rakes deformity or perusing some informative garden fork reviews. Rather than abiding by gardening conventions that had been codified over centuries, “Capability” Brown and those like him innovated a remarkable blend of structure and instinct by combining modern decorative pieces like statues with natural lines.
Nowadays, gardens often look very different but nonetheless we grow plants for much the same reasons. You won’t encounter a more picturesque realm than a garden paradise.