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Garden and Designed Landscape Types

Click the above link to see pictures.

Garden and Designed Landscape Types

Garden types relate to the purposes for which gardens are made. They are quite distinct from garden
design styles,
as are vehicle types (car, tank, truck) from vehicle design styles. A distinction should also be made between design styles and national styles (such as
Chinese Gardens
and
Japanese Gardens).
National styles exist but they have evolved over millennia. The distinction between designed gardens and designed landscapes is predominantly that between
private and public designed outdoor space.

Cottage Gardens
Castle Gardens
Palace Gardens
Hunting Park
Vegetable Garden
Domestic Garden
Public Park
Medicinal Garden
Scholar Garden
Encampment Garden
Paradise Garden
Academy Garden
Temple Garden
Zoological Garden
Sacred Grove
Beer Garden
Sculpture Garden
Cloister Garth
Hofgarten
Tomb Garden
Sport Park
Botanic Garden
Café Garden
Alpine Garden
City Park
Public Park
Flower Garden
Arboretum
National Nature Park

Chinese Garden Design Philosophy

See notes on:
Chinese Gardens to Visit
and
Chinese Garden Tours
and
Buddhist Gardens
and
Chronology of Chinese Garden Design

Maggie Keswick (The Chinese Garden: history, art and architecture, 1986, p.7), summarised the distinctive characteristics of Chinese and Japanese gardens
as follows:

A Japanese garden has: exquisite arrangements of stone and moss, its manicured pines and dry streams, and above all its sense of being so perfect in itself
that (as Mishima wrote) the visitor feels even the intrusion of his own senses onto the garden constitutes a violation. [See webpage on
Japanese garden design.]

A Chinese garden is confusing and dense, dominated by huge rock-piles and a great number of buildings all squeezed into innumerable, often very small spaces.

Her explanation is that Chinese gardens are cosmic diagrams, revealing a profound and ancient view of the world and of mans place in it. Yet they have
also been:
the background for a civilisation
places where great poets and painters have met and worked
full of laughter and jokes and the scenes of ribald parties, amorous assignations, and the status-seeking efforts of countless nouveaux riches
settings for peaceful contemplation
settings for family festivals and elaborate dramatics
a domain for a woman with bound feat... to steal away at night and slip into oblivion under the glassy surface of a garden pond [as in the Dream of the
Red Chamber and Pa Chins Family)

Dream of the Red Chamber (see
excerpt)
was written by Tsao Chan (1715–63) and describes the life of a rich merchant. The garden he brings to life belongs to the scholar garden tradition which
itself derives from the Buddhist tradition. Red stands for luck in Chinese culture.

It should be noted that much confusion about Chinese gardens results from a failure to distinguish three types of space. In western terms they can be
called [1] landscape parks [2] domestic courtyards [3] sacred gardens

[1] Chinese landscape parks

China had parks during the Shang Dynasty (1766-1111 BCE) in which the scenery was as much valued as the sport. But these were not gardens in the modern
sense - they were natural parks. The term hills and water was similar in meaning to the western landscape. The stones, an essential component of Chinese
gardens, came from Lake Tai, near Suzhou, and became a feature of
scholar gardens.

[2] Chinese domestic courtyards

In the strict sense of enclosed outdoor space the classic Chinese garden was a rectangular domestic courtyard attached to a dwelling. Even in neolithic
times it was customary for a dwelling to face south and for settlements to be on a north-south axis. [See websites on
Chinese courtyard housing
and on
Beijing courtyards].
The interest in orientation led, at a later date, to the art of feng shui. Courtyards were enclosed by buildings and, as at
Pompeii,
there were no windows on the outside walls and rich people had more than one courtyard. Richest of all, the Emperor of China had many courtyards with specialised
roles - and he too used the design principles of strict geometry with a north-south axis. In winter sun entered from the south; in winter the sun was too
high to gain entry.

3] Sacred Chinese gardens

The type of space which best merits the name Chinese garden was the product of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Scholars used these ideas to make private
gardens attached to their dwellings.

Confucianism is associated with the geometrical order of Chinese domestic and town planning. It grew out of Chinas ancient religion (ancestor worship)
and was known as the Way of Heaven (see note on
Shinto -
the Way of the Gods). Confucius (Kung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi, 551-479 BCE) believed study improved man, particularly that of the noble arts: rites, music,
writing, mathematics, chariot driving and archery. These became the basis for educating the ‘good man’. They fostered the traditional Chinese virtues of
sensibility, self-control and harmony between man and the universe – which equipped a man to serve the government. Bureaucrats were scholars. The diagram
below show the
Forbidden City
in Beijing [Note1: the naturalistic areas within the Palace were made under the influence of Taoism and Buddhism, as described below. Note2: see Marco Polos
description of
the Forbidden City in 1275 AD).

Taoism is linked to Lao Tzu but did not develop until 200 years after his death (itself dated between 600 and 300 BCE). The Tao is the inexpressible source
of being, a divine principle which underlies the natural world. This evolved into a mystical religion which turned away from the artificialities and etiquette
of Confucius. The good man was seen as one whose life rested on naturalness, not wealth or status. This became associated with a more natural approach
to the design of gardens. Taoism was also associated with a search after the elixir of life, helped by journeys to the Isles of the Immortals in the Eastern
Sea. The Isles became an important theme in Chinese art and, later, Japanese art. They fitted easily into the older theme of woods and water painting.

Buddhism came to China from India (probably with merchants on the Silk Road). It was then adopted by the Emperor and transformed through contact with Chinese
civilisation. This brought a monastic tradition to China though it was not necessary to join a monastery. Laymen could hope for nirvana if they lived as
Buddhists - and nor did they have to deny the old religions. Two strands developed, with ten schools. Chingtu (Amide - or Amanda - Buddhism) emphasised
rebirth in the
Pure Land of the West
and Chan (similar to Japanese Zen Buddhism) emphasised meditation. Chinese gardens, like the rocks used to form them, were aids to meditation.

China had an assimilative attitude to religion. Confucian geometry was joined, through Buddhism and Taoism, to a mystical appreciation of nature in garden
design. Buddhist monastries began making idealised landscapes and, it appears, the imperial family followed their lead. The marriage of geometry and naturalism
can be seen in the drawings (below left) of a Buddhist monastery in Hangzhou (below right) and the imperial garden (
Jingshan Park)
north of the Forbidden City and on its axis. It was through Buddhism that the Chinese love of woods and water came to influence the design of vast landscape
parks (eg the
West Lake)
and the making of Chinese gardens in courtyards within the
Forbidden City.

See:
Chronology of Chinese Gardens
Hung Lou Meng; Or, The Dream Of The Red Chamber,
A Chinese Novel By Cao Xueqin, Translated By H. Bencraft Joly

The main entrance of the Garden of Concentrated Fragrance, adjoining the street, was opened wide; and on both sides were raised sheds for the musicians,
and two companies of players, dressed in blue, discoursed music at the proper times; while one pair after another of the paraphernalia was drawn out so
straight as if cut by a knife or slit by an axe.

The two residences of Ning and Jung were, in these days, it is true, divided by a small street, which served as a boundary line, and there was no communication
between them, but this narrow passage was also private property, and not in any way a government street, so that they could easily be connected, and as
in the garden of Concentrated Fragrance, there was already a stream of running water, which had been introduced through the corner of the Northern wall.

As soon as she pronounced the two words "insult me," her eyeballs at once were suffused with purple, and turning herself round she there and then walked
away; which filled Pao-yue with so much distress that he jumped forward to impede her progress, as he pleaded: "My dear cousin, I earnestly entreat you
to spare me this time! Ive indeed said what I shouldnt; but if I had any intention to insult you, Ill throw myself to-morrow into the pond, and let
the scabby-headed turtle eat me up, so that I become transformed into a large tortoise. And when you shall have by and by become the consort of an officer
of the first degree, and you shall have fallen ill from old age and returned to the west, Ill come to your tomb and bear your stone tablet for ever on
my back!"

Chinese Gardens (with selected garden history keydates and links to information for visitors)

Garden of Harmonious Pleasures - in the Summer Palace.

Chinas garden design tradition extends over more than 3,000 years and, it is often said, there were three famous garden types: palace gardens, temple gardens
and scholar gardens, each of which had a religious (symbolic) role.Three additional types can be added: the vegetable garden, the hunting park (though
none survive) and the domestic courtyard, as attached to private houses and palaces (eg in the Forbidden City).

Of the four most famous Chinese gardens, two are scholar gardens and two are imperial palace gardens: the Humble Administrators Garden (in Suzhou), the
Garden for Lingering (in Suzhou), the Imperial Summer Palace (in Beijing), and the Imperial Mountain Resort (in Chengde). In Europe, the Garden of Perfect
Brightness was the most famous in the eighteenth century.

Japanese Gardens

Shinto,
the traditional religion of Japan, had a powerful sense of gods and spirits in nature. This was fertile ground for the introduction of Buddhism and established
a Japanese tradition whereby foreign ideas were enthusiastically studied and then transformed into a Japanese version.

Several types of garden space can be distinguished (the word is not well-suited to the first two):
The sacred trees and forests in which Shinto gods were believed to reside.
The expanse of white gravel on which a Shinto shrine was placed
The domestic courtyard (earth surfaced niwa) for outdoor work
The space in front of an imperial palace, used for court events and surfaced in white gravel because the emperor was related to the gods
The sacred Buddhist spaces which the world knows as a Japanese Garden

A visit by Ono-no-Imoko to China (see
Timeline for Chinese gardens
and
Timeline for Japanese gardens)
is regarded as the starting point for the development of the Japanese gardens which survive. He brought to Japan both the idea of making gardens and a Buddhist
approach to their design. A book published c1100 [Sakutei-ki (notes on the making of gardens)] gives the principles of this approach:
make a symbolic re-recreation of an ideal landscape
create a vision of the Pure Land of the Buddha Amida
create an image of the Isles of the Immortals
help man to meditate - and take the road to spiritual awakening
ease the descent of tutelary spirits
stimulate feelings of a beautifully Japanese space peopled by divinities

Pierre and Susanne Rambach (on p.14 in Gardens of longevity, in China and Japan) see these objectives as belonging to the physical and spiritual search...
for longevity, using longevity to mean maintaining the state of youth [see note on
Taoism, Nature and the Isles of the Immortals].

The
Buddhist design approach
began with monks but was adopted by emperors and nobles, always with continuity and usually with change. The continuity was an emphasis on the role of meditation
in garden design. The changes had several causes: (1) the necessity to keep re-building palaces and gardens after their destruction by fire - Kyotos earthquakes
and lightening storms being a common cause of fire, (2) the
Shinto
belief that a death could pollute a building and make it necessary to build anew, (3) changing fashions and the imagination of designers, (4) the making
of gardens by the imperial family and the nobility - who were naturally more interested in pleasure than monks, and more so after real power was lost to
the shoguns, (5) contacts with China and, occasionally, other countries.

Three types of of Buddhist garden can be distinguished:
Influenced by Pure Land (Amida) Buddhism. The aim was to make a physical counterpart of the type of mandala which shows a Buddha sitting in front of a temple
and with a garden in the foreground. Gardens represented the Pure Land.
Influenced by Zen Buddhism. These gardens were for meditation. They were abstract compositions showing the world reduced to its essentials. Making and mainting
such gardens was a spiritual activity.
Monastery gardens. Because they were made on forested mountains (by the Shingon Buddhist sect) it was necessary to reach an accommodation between Shinto
(which treated trees as sacred) and Buddhism (which treated mountains as sacred). This was achieved by (1) doing without the walls which had enclosed Buddhist
temples (2) using expanses of white gravel in garden design.

The Tea Ceremony became an important factor in garden design and illustrates the changes. The ceremony was introduced to Japan from China in 1191, because
drinking tea was an aid to meditation. The tea ceremony involved a small group of companions drinking from the same cup. In the sixteenth century the ceremony
became formalised, in tea gardens and stroll gardens, with a specially designed path leading to special pavilions. Siting the pavilions became a prime
objective in garden design, with artistically placed stepping stones to protect the plants from stroller and the attire of the stroller. Tea gardens also
had stone lanterns to allow the ceremony to take place after dark.

The progression of Japanese gardens from religious to secular it mirrored by changes in their patronage:
monks
emperors
military lords
wealthy families

Cottage garden

In thirteenth century French a cote was a small shelter. This meaning came into English and the suffix-age was added to mean the entire property attached
to a cote.

To know what type of gardens were attached to such places during the Middle Ages, we must turn to what is known about medieval gardens: not much. But it
is known that most of the land was used for vegetables and if flowers were grown it was only if they a medicinal or culinary use. This applied even to
the rose and the lily.

It was not until the late nineteenth century, with the gilded vision of Arts and Crafts romantics, that a Cottage Garden became a thing to yearn for. Since
then, there has been no looking back. All the world loves a cottage and few remember the generations of grinding toil. The truth of the matter is that
the type of dwelling illustrated in the paintings belonged to prosperous members of the middle class. The rubble huts with earthen floors and leaking roofs
inhabited by the peasantry have all gone.

The icon of musical rebellion, Bob Dylan, confessed in his autobiography (Chronicles, 2004) that he wanted nothing more than what sounded like a cottage
with roses growing round the door.

Castle gardens

There are:
documentary records of gardens in medieval castles
spaces within castle walls which must have been garden sites
no medieval drawings or plans of castle gardens
a few renaissance drawings of gardens made within castle walls

The best hope of discovering more about castle gardens is pollen analysis.

See diagram for
Castle Garden
with links to examples in France (because France played a major role in the development of north European castles).

The gardens have gone by the
Castle of Saumur
still looks much as it did in the Tres Riches Heures

Palace Gardens

The word palace comes from the Palatine Hill in Rome, upon which the Roman emperors built their palatial homes. Its use has since been extended to cover
grand houses whoever they may belong to.

The form of the Palace of the Emperors on Romes Palatine Hill derived from the palaces of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Minoan and Macedonian kings. Though vast,
it was a relatively dense building with internal courtyards. Such spaces could be used as external rooms. Their climate was better than open gardens and
they were much more secure.

As the Roman empire became stronger and safer, the emperors began to build palaces in outside Rome. The most famous is Hadrians Villa at Tivoli and it
differs from the palace complex on the Palatine. In addition to internal courtyards, it had parkland and gymnasia distributed over a large area. We might
call it an estate garden and it stands as a precedent for later palace gardens throughout Europe.

The palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome

Hadrians Villa at Tivoli, outside Rome

Hunting Park

So long as homo sapiens remained nomadic, there was no need or opportunity to make hunting parks.

But when significant areas of land became used for agriculture and settlement, people began to yearn for the pleasures of hunting and it became necessary
to fence large tracts of land as hunting parks. This was done in Ancient Mesopotamia and also in Ancient China.

The practice of making hunting parks spread to North Europe during the Middle Ages and many of the old hunting parks continue in use as deer parks.

The deer park at Woburn Abbey.

Deer in Richmond Park, London.

Vegetable gardens

It is logic, not archaeology, which claims the vegetable garden as the oldest of all garden types. Homo sapiens began as hunter gather, roaming Africa.
We settled for the purpose of tending crops. This probably began with wild grain. Cerals benefit from an enclosure but can be protected from grazing animals
by men and dogs. But for growing vegetables an enclosure have significant advantages: the wall keeps out beasts, fellow humans, cold winds and weed seeds.

The brave individuals who continue to grow their own vegetables are in noblest tradition and deserve more support than they normally receive from society.

Domestic garden

Domestic derives from the Sanskrit. damah, the Avestan demana,and the Greek. domos all meaning house. A domestic garden is therefore a garden attached
to a house.

The origin of domestic gardens lie beyond the reach of recorded history. Yet the oldest pictorial records of domestic gardens, from Ancient Egypt, show
them to have been astonishingly similar to modern domestic gardens. The gardens shown in Egyptian tomb paintings were, of course, the gardens of the rich.
Now that so many people are rich, we all want gardens like those of Egypts pharoahs: with shelters, pools, shady walks, pergolas and plants growing in
terracotta pots.

The accompanying photographs show modern gardens in rural Egypt. They are perhaps as close as we can get to the domestic gardens of the ancient world.

Public Park

The term public park dates from the early nineteenth century (see note on
city park)
and is associated with the public health movement. It was believed (wrongly as it turned out) that infectious diseases (eg cholera) could be prevented by
giving towns more fresh air.

The mistake about public health has had a bad effect on the planning and design of public parks. Providers have always felt the need for rules and regulations.
These are necessary for public health but in public parks their use should be restricted public safety and the protection of property.

Park managers also have a regrettable tendency to think of the park as theirs and of decisions about how money should be allocated as being for them to
decide.

If the park is really public then members of the public should have a real say in decision-making. Mere consultation is not enough! It results in loveless
and unloved municipal parks. London now takes the lead in this type of public park, as it once did in public parks for public health.

Medicinal gardens

Also known a herb garden and a garden of simples, specialised medicinal gardens have been made at least since the Middle Ages, though plants were grown
for medical purposes long before.

Many modern drugs are, of course, extracted from herbs and other plants. But modern herb gardens are used more for cooking than for medical purposes.

The
Orto Botanico
in Padua made to teach medical students about medicinal plants.

Scholar Gardens

Mi Fu (or Mi Fei 1051-1107), took a rock as his ‘brother’ and used to visit it and bow to it each day. He created the "Mi style" of ink-wash landscape painting
and was a great calligrapher.

Chinese civil servants used to be chosen on grounds of birth. Confucius believed they should, instead, be chosen by competitive examination. This led to
the development of a class of scholars. They were educated in philosophy, literature, music, poetry, calligraphy and painting. Since four of these arts
turned on nature, it was a natural development for scholars to turn to gardens. But their interest was not in growing vegetables (peasants work) or
in horticulture. It was in making symbolic places befitting their scholarship. The made places in which to meditate - on a highly intellectual representation
of nature. In the sticky heat of the representation of woods, water and mountains helped the scholar to meditate on cooler and fresher places.

Rocks were a vital component of scholar gardens, objects of reverence and study. They brought mountains into towns. Small rocks were used to rest calligraphy
brushes upon. Large stones were placed in gardens, often grouped to suggest the mountain peaks which featured in landscape paintings or placed by water
to suggest the Isles of the Immortals. The Chinese word for ‘landscape’ is shanshui, meaning ‘mountains and water’. The most famous garden stones came
from Lake Tai (Tai Hu) between Suzhou and Wuxi.

It seems probable that scholars led the way in developing this type of garden and that their design ideas were followed by emperors. A careful re-creation
of the garden type has been made at the
Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Canada.

Encampment gardens
return toMughal Gardens
Palace Gardens
Tomb Gardens
Fruit and Flower Gardens

Doulatabad Garden in Yazd

The
Doulatabad Garden in Yazd,
Iran, has something of the character of an encampment garden - with carpeted sitting above ground level.

Ram Bagh in Agra

The
Ram Bagh in Agra
has raised walks with water channels. They were used to spread carpets above the mud insects and snakes at orchard level.

Bracket for canopy

Carpet spread on paving
Mughal encampment gardens were formed on Timurid lines
#_edn1.
The court needed the protection of an army when travelling from place to place and it was pleasant to have good camp sites on the route, gardens serving
this purpose well. The pavilion was a place for the emperor to sleep. Canals provided water. Planting provided succulent fruits and refreshing scents.
In addition to being places of resort and residence, the Shalimar Bagh gardens on the Grand Trunk Road, outside Delhi and Lahore, could be used to assemble
a caravan before its departure. Babur left the following account of how he selected the site of what is believed to be the Ram Bagh in Agra:

I always thought one of the chief faults of Hindustan was that there was no running water. Everywhere that was habitable it should be possible to construct
waterwheels, create running water, and make planned, geometric spaces … I crossed the Jumna with this plan in mind and scouted around for places to build
gardens, but everywhere I looked was so unpleasant and desolate that I crossed back in great disgust. Because the place was so ugly and disagreeable I
abandoned my dream of making a charbagh. Although there was no really suitable place near Agra, there was nothing to do but work with the space we had.
The foundation was the large well from which the water for the bathhouse came.
#_edn2

Babur thus explains a key feature of Mughal gardens. Their predecessors, in the lands which are now Uzbekistan and Afganistan, were fed by rushing water
from the mountains. This being impossible on the flat plains of North India, the gardens had to be supplied with water drawn by oxen from deep wells. Water
had to be conserved. Channels could only have shallow falls. They were formed on raised walkways with the space on either side used for fruit and vegetables
watered by flood irrigation. See note on
Mughal planting design.
Raised walks protected visitors from snakes and vermin. They could be spread with carpets and protected from the sun by canopies.

See note on
The Golden Road to Samarkand
for the context in which Timurid-Mughal gardens originated.

#_ednref1
Lisa Golombek ‘From Tamerlane to the Taj Mahal’ pp 315-327 in Monica Juneja Architecture in Medieval India Delhi: Permanent Black 2001

#_ednref2
The Baburnama: memoris of Babur, Prince and Emperor London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996 p.359

Paradise Gardens

The old Persian word paradise means wall around and was originally used to describe a
hunting park.

The walled enclosures were then used as reserves for exotic plants and exotic animals. They were amongst the booty brought back from military expeditions.

It is likely that palaces were then located inside hunting parks and smaller walled encosures were made for the kings residence and his orchards. This too
was known as a paradise and one can still see Persian gardens with mud walls enclosing orchards and flowers. They also have networks of small canals which
functioned as a water supply as well as an ornamental feature. This combination became known as a paradise garden: a walled enclosure with plants, birds,
fruit trees and geometrical canals.

Note: The word paradise took on its present meaning (heaven) when it was adopted by the Greeks. The garden then became a symbol of heaven in the Abrahamic
religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

Academy garden

In Ancient Greece, The Academy was a grove outside the walls of Athens, dedicated to the god Academus and used for teaching. Platos Academy was the grove
in which Plato taught philosophy.

In the modern world academy has a similar meaning to school - and very few schools are known for their good gardens. Stowe School in England should
be re-named Stowe Academy. It occupies the mansion of a famous landscape garden - which has a Grecian Grove and was, through a long chain of inheritance,
inspired by the landscape of Ancient Greece.

If all schools were set in Academy Gardens, it could make an important contribution to the education of good citizens with as keen an appreciation of aesthetic
qualities as of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.

Platos Academy in Athens

Platos Academy in Athens

Stowe School in a landscape garden

Stowe School is a Grecian building in a classical landscape

Temple gardens

The first temples were built to protect statues of gods from the weather. They were not built for congregational worship.See information on
sacred groves.

When temples became large and important structures it began to look as though the surrounding space was a garden, attached to a temple as domestic garden
is attached to a house. This was especially so when temples were closed to public access and the space within the protective wall became a compound for
priests.

The Temples of
Hatshseput
and
Mentuhotep,
in Egypt, and the Temple of
Hephaistos,
in Greece, are of particular interest because planting positions have been located.

Buddhist Temples
also tend to have gardens because Buddha meditated in a park. They are found in India, China, Japan and elsewhere in South East Asia.


Zoological Gardens

The origin of zoos is similar to that of
botanical gardens.
They began as areas of imparked land in which kings and emperors made collections of exotic beasts. The Romans kept animals for use in arenas and wealthy
individuals kept animals as curiosities. The practice of maintaining animals collecstions fell into decline when the Roman Empire fell.

Modern zoo keeping is generally dated to the foundation of the Imperial Menagerie at Schonbrunn Palace but the Zoological Society of London claims to have
founded the first scientific animal collection in 1828.

In recent years there has been public opposition to zoos on animal welfare grounds. The alternatives are:
watch the animals on film or video
visit the countries in which the animals are native

Sacred Grove

It is likely that certain places in particular landscapes were first considered sacred (in the sense of believed to be holy; devoted to a deity or used
for a religious ceremony). Demarcated with a line of boulders or an enclosing wall, these places became sanctuaries and were supplied with additional
features: a statue of a god, a shelter for the god (a temple), a sacred lake and sacred trees. The term sacred grove can be used for:
the landscape in which the sanctuary is located
the area of the sanctuary
a group of trees within the sanctuary

See sections on
Sacred Gardens,
Sanctuaries,
Egyptian Sanctuaries,
Greek Sanctuaries
and
Roman Sanctuaries.
In Japan, whole forests were regarded as sacred to the gods.

Beer Garden

Beer is not a new drink. The Chinese brewed beer ‘Kui over 5,000 years ago. In Babylon, women brewers were also priestesses. The code of Hammuabi regulated
the brewing and distribution of been. Beer was an important food in Ancient Egyp and also had a sacred role. People gathered to drink in a ‘house of beer
and the probability is that house meant a walled enclosure part-roofed and part-garden. The Greeks taught the Romans to brew, and Julius Caesar, after
crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC used beer to toast his officers. Beer remained popular during the Middle Ages.

In modern Europe the country most closely associated with been gardens is Germany. They are found throughout German towns and are a popular feature of public
parks.

Hops deserve a place in every beer garden

Young and old enjoy beer in gardens

Sculpture garden

Sculpture was placed in
sacred groves.
In Egypt it stood out of doors. In Greece it was usually protected by a temple or grotto. The Romans plundered Greek sanctuaries and took the sculpture
to Italy for use in gardens. Large collections were amassed - and they are the origin of modern sculpture gardens.

During the Middle Ages, it appears that sculpture was not used in gardens. It was regarded as pagan and idolatrous.

In the renaissance period and thereafter sculpture was used extensively in gadens - in the Roman manner.

But the abstract art of the twentieth century split sculpture away from architecture and garden design. This was done both in the interets of abstraction
and for professional reasons. Indoor sculpture was placed in galleries and outdoor sculpture in gardens.

Installation art is going some way towards re-integrating sculpture with its surroundings and some sculptors are taking an interest in garden design, as
well they might.

Cloister garden (garth)

The word cloister means closed and was originally used for the part of a monastery which was closed to public access. When its main feature became a grass
square surrounded by an arcade, people began to use cloister to refer to the enclosing element: the arcade.

Cloisters are the most significant legacy of the ancient worlds peristyle gardens. They can be wonderful spaces:
beautiful
calm
perfectly proportioned
sheltered
able to provide sitting places which are warm in winter and cool in summer

It cannot be beyond the wit of the modern world to find a new use for such a brilliant garden type.

Islamic courtyards, as found in mosques and madrassahs, are related to cloister gardens. And they demonstrate how the building type is just as well suited
to a hot southern climate as a cold northern climate.

Hofgarten

In German a hof is a courtyard and thus a court garden. T S Eliot captured the atmosphere of a South German court garden as follows: ‘Summer surprised
us, coming over the Starnbergersee/With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,/And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,/And drank coffee, and
talked for an hour.’

Mughal Tomb Gardens
return toMughal Gardens
Palace Gardens
Fruit and Flower Gardens
Encampment Gardens
Safdar Jangs Tomb Garden,
Delhi

Humayuns Tomb Garden, Delhi

Humayuns Tomb Garden, Delhi

Humayuns Tomb Garden, Delhi Humayuns Tomb Garden, Delhi

Tomb building was not a Hindu custom: bodies were cr emated. In the early days of Islam tombs were modest, because all men are equal before God, but they
were sometimes placed in outdoor enclosures for protection. The Seljuk Turks and the Timurids adopted Islam as their religion and began building elaborate
tombs, probably having brought the idea from Central Asia or China.

In the sixteenth century the Mughals began designing tomb enclosures as gardens. It was an original idea. A central mausoleum replaced the garden pavilion
and the chahar bagh layout was formalised into a perfectly symmetrical square plan. Khanserai et al see this as a Persian idea derived from ancient ceramics
and give the Balkuwara Palace in Iraq as an early example
#_edn1.
There is however no evidence for perfectly square gardens having been made before the Mughal period and a time gap of 1700 years seems excessively long
for ‘influence’. This leaves three alternatives for the origin if the square idea (1) it may have come, via mosque courts, from the cloister gardens of
Constantinople (2) it may have been inspired by the Buddhist mandala - a circle within a square (3) it may derive from the Islamic belief that paradise,
being perfect, must have perfect symmetry. The significant point is the religious character of each of these alternatives.

Percy Brown categorises Mughal construction as secular or religious, adding that ‘those of a religious nature consist of two kinds only – the mosque and
the tomb’
#_edn2.
But tomb gardens span his categories. They were places to pray but they were also places of resort for the nobility to sip rose-water sherbet and chilled
lemon juice, sitting on rich carpets in the cool of the night. The design of tomb gardens was also part-religious and part-secular. The Koran states that
‘surely those who guard (against evil) shall be in gardens and rivers ’
#_edn3.
Shah Jahan’s tomb in the Taj Mahal therefore has the inscription: ‘This is the illumined grave and sacred resting place of the Emperor... may it be sanctified
and may Paradise become his abode’
#_edn4.
The Taj Mahal is an earthly paradise and the outstanding example of a Mughal garden.

#_ednref1
M Khansari, M Reza Moghtader, Minouch Yavari The Persian Garden: Echos of Paradise Washington DC: Mage Publishers 1998 p.14 and p.167. Further, the excavation
report states specifically that ‘Herzfeld does not mention any evidence (irrigation systems, garden soil to replace the salinated surface material) to
justify a term [garden] that should be applied only to the so-called river garden to the west of the reception hall’ Thomas Leisten Excavation of Samarra
Vol 1 2003 Verlag Philipp von Sabern p.88.

#_ednref2
Percy Brown Indian Architecture (Islamic Period) Bombay: D B Taraporevala Sons & Co. 1956 p.3

#_ednref3
The Qur’an Sura 54:54)

#_ednref4
Elizabeth B Moynihan The Moonlight Garden: New discoveries at the Taj Mahal Washington: University of Washington Press 2000 p.31.

Sports parks

In Ancient Greece, sporting competitions were held near
sacred groves
(eg at
Olympia).

When the Roman Emperors declared themselves gods and began making what were effectively sacred groves in their palace gardens, they included sporting facilities.

The above history was remembered during the twentieth century when the Olympic Games were re-started and, more ominously, when governments began to see
physical fitness as a desirable quality in army recruits. The latter consideration led to the wholesale provision of sports facilities in public parks.
They may well contribute to public health objectives but they do little for garden or landscape design objectives.

The best example of a well-designed sport park, fully deserving the historical associations of its name, is the
Munich Olympiapark.
Botanic gardens

Botanic gardens are a great deal older than one might think. Chinese emperors, Egyptian pharaohs and Babylonian kings all formed plant collections in protected
enclosures. We may not consider them scientists in our sense but they were plainly influenced by the urge to collect. It is a powerful urge.

Botanical gardens in the modern sense date, like modern science, from the renaissance. The
Orto Botanico
in Padua is believed to be the oldest extant example.

During the baroque period, botanic gardens were made on the estates of kings and nobles, often combined with zoological gardens - as at
Schonbrunn
in Vienna and the
Wilhelma
in Stuttgart.

In the nineteenth century botanic gardens were made by rich men and, increasingly, by scientific institutions and public bodies. See
list of Botanic Gardens.
Cafe Garden

The word cafe derives from coffee. Coffee was introduced to Istanbul by the Ottoman Turks and the worlds first coffee shop opened there in 1475. A law
made it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he failed to supply with a daily quota of coffee. From Istanbul coffee travelled to Italy and from
there to north Europe. Englands first coffee house opened in 1652. It the eighteenth century it became an expensive drink for the upper classes. In the
nineteenth century it spread to the middle classes and in the twentieth century to the entire population of Europe. The word cafe came into use as a place
to drink coffee. Some gardens but coffee has never been as closely associated with gardening as tea. Coffee remains a sophisticated drink for urban dwellers
seeking stimulation.

Alpine Gardens

As a type, the Alpine Garden was a nineteenth century invention, best understood as a product of the Romantic Movement.

The Movement Movement began with poets and scholars dreaming of far-off times. This was easily extended to dreams of far-away places. During the nineteenth
century it was not so easy to visit other countries unless you were intrepid plant collector. This led to people using plants to re-create the scenery
in which they had been collected. Humphry Repton favoured American Gardens and Reginald Farrer became famous writing about Alpine Gardens.

Today, there are Alpine Gardens even in the Alps.

City Parks

In considering the antiquity of city parks, one has to be careful about definitions. A city park can be
any green space within the city boundary
an urban green space used as an imparkment within which to keep animals (usually for hunting)
a private vegetated space within a settlment laid out for recreation
a public greenspace in a town owned by the crown and designed as a garden for public use
a public space in a town owned by the public and used for recreation and amenity horticulture

It is only in the last of these senses, which has become popular, that it is true to say that the city park was a nineteenth century invention. The fame
and influence of Central Park New York became so great that it virtually gave a new meaning to the word park. It is evidently a City Park - not a suburban
public park.

Flower gardens

In the sense of a garden devoted to growing flowers, the flower garden is an invention of the nineteenth century.

Flowers have been enjoyed in gardens since ancient times, but they were not the prime motive for making a garden. Today, many people believe flowers to
be raison detre of gardens. Leisure and hobbies are modern possibilities. In past times the prime reasons for making gardens were:
for the protection of animals at night
for growing fruit and vegetables
for outdoor working and eating

Using a broad brush, the history of flower gardens can be sketched as follows:
The practice of interspersing flowers in fruit gardens continued from ancient times at least until the renaissance.
During the
baroque period
planting for show (and everything else for show) became common.
In
landscape gardens,
which were intended to be less boastful and more natural, flowers tended to be grown in special areas, like vegetables.
By the early nineteenth century Repton and others were recommending different types of flower garden as components of the
Mixed Style.
At the end of the nineteenth century, protagonists of an
Arts and Crafts
approach to gardens were recommending that flowers be used in a garden like pigments in a paintbox. It was this approach which led to the development of
modern flower gardens.

Renaissance gardens had space in which flowers could be grown but growing flowers was not the reason for making the gardens.

Nor was growing flowers the main role of landscape gardens.

Victorian flower garden

Arts and Crafts flower garden

Arboretum

An arboretum is a collection of trees. It differs from a wood and a forest in that the prime aim is to collect and display a wide range of tree species.

One might expect the result of this idea to be no more beautiful than a collection of stamps or butterflies - and one would be regrettably close to the
truth.

But the designers of some arboretums (purists may prefer the spelling arboreta) have decided to arrange the species naturalistic groups. This idea can
be traced to John Claudius Loudons invention of the
Gardenesque Style
of garden design. Loudon wrote a multi-volume Arboretum et Fruticum Brittanicum with drawings and botanical information on the tree species which could
be grown in the British Isles.
Kew Gardens
was the logical consequence of his work.

National Parks and Nature Parks

Administratively, the idea dates to the formation of Americas National Parks.

Conceptually, the idea is far older. It can be traced to the sacred groves of the ancient world. They were places where humans could learn about the nature
of the gods. Egyptian temples did their best to explain how the world was created (by Amun-ra)) how life and death are linked and how the Earth was related
to the universe. Modern national parks and nature parks let us observe untouched nature so that we can understand, with the help of science, how the
physical and natural worlds evolved.