History of gardening

The early history of gardening is largely entangled with the history of agriculture, with gardens that were mainly ornamental generally the preserve of the elite until quite recent times. Smaller gardens generally had being a kitchen garden as their first priority, as is still often the case.

The broad traditions that have dominated gardening since ancient times include those of the Ancient Near East, which became the Islamic garden, the Mediterranean, which produced the Roman garden, hugely influencing later European gardening, and the Chinese garden and its development on the Japanese garden. While the basic gardening techniques were fairly well understood by trial and error from early on, the plants available in a particular location have changed enormously, especially in recent centuries. Many new groups of plants have been introduced from other parts of the world, and the ornamental plants now used are mostly cultivars bred to improve qualities such as colour, length of flowering, size and hardiness.

In Europe during the Renaissance, garden design was dominated by the Italian garden, which developed into the French formal garden, dominating the Baroque period. Both were formal styles, attempting to impose architectural principles on the garden. In the 18th century, the English landscape garden developed, apparently informal and natural, but requiring very large spaces, and by the end of the century dominated all Europe in the largest new gardens.

Gardening may be considered as aesthetic expressions 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 private and public landscapes.

The enclosure of outdoor space probably began around 10,000 BC. Historians imagine the first enclosure was a type of barrier used for excluding animals and marauders, perhaps beginning in West Asia, thereafter spreading to South and East Asia, and westward into Greece, and Europe. The modern words "garden" and "yard" are descendants of the Old English "geard", which denotes a fence or enclosure.

After the emergence of the first civilizations, wealthy citizens began creating gardens for purely aesthetic purposes. Egyptian tomb paintings of the 16th century BC are some of the earliest physical evidence of ornamental horticulture and landscape design depicting lotus ponds surrounded by symmetrical rows of acacias and palms. Another ancient tradition is of Persia: Darius the Great was said to have had a "paradise garden" and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were renowned as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Persian gardens were designed along a central axis of symmetry.

Persian influences extended to Hellenistic Greece after Alexander the Great. C. 350 BC there were gardens at the Academy of Athens, and Theophrastus, who wrote on botany, supposedly inherited a garden from Aristotle. Epicurus had a garden where he walked and taught, and he bequeathed it to Hermarchus of Mytilene. Alciphron also referenced private gardens in his writing.

The most influential ancient gardens in the western world were those of Ptolemy in Alexandria, Egypt, and the horticultural tradition that Lucullus brought to Rome. Wall paintings in Pompeii, Italy, attest to later elaborate development. The wealthiest Romans built extensive villa gardens with water features, including fountains and rivulets, topiary, roses, and shaded arcades. Archeological evidence survives at sites such as Hadrian's Villa.