This from my SIL's book The Art of the Kitchen Garden, by Jan and Michael Gertley. While reading it I immediately thought of this post, Laurie, and how these gardens lived and were tended throughout these hundreds of years of changing influencies while still serving their primary purposes.
Medieval Monastic Gardens
Monasteries were established throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and were crucial in preserving the sum of man's knowledge since ancient times. By carefully copying and maintaining old manuscripts, the monastic monks kept alive information that may have otherwise been lost, including Roman horticulatural practices.
The monks were self-sufficient, growing all their own medicinal herbs, fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Although segregated into separate parts, the herbs, fruits, vegetables, and flowers were generally grown together within one cloister, or enclosed garden.
The garden was typically a simple geometrical design, usually containing four sections: a physic garden for medicinal herbs; a combined orchard and vineyard; a vegetable garden consisting of square or rectangular beds (edged with boards or willow branches) that enabled the monks to maintain the beds from a network of paths, thus avoiding soil compaction; and a flower garden containing plants such as violets, Madonna lilies, and roses, which were grown for their fragrance and religious symbolism and were used to decorate the altar. (whew!! that's a long sentence.)
Italian Renaissance Gardens
During the pre-Renaissance period in the 14th century, Europe was gradually awakening to a new age of humanistic thought. New trade and exploration, a resurgent interest in the arts and science preserved from ancient Greece and Rome, and greater freedom to explore new ideas and new ways of thinking were firmly taking root. Approaches to horticulture were also breaking free from the confinement of medieval cloister gardens.
French Formal Gardens
Perhaps nothing exemplifies the grand formal gardens of France during the "Age of Kings" more than Versailles, built in the second half of the 17th centurey. Burt the seed for this magnificent garden was sown more thatn 150 years ealier during the reign of Charles VIII, who brought in Italian artisans and craftsmen to work on the castle at Amboise. During the 16th century, the Italian Rensaissance continued to influence the design of many grand chateaus, including Louis XII's castle at Blois and Francis I's castle at Fontainebleau.
English Gardens
At the beginning of the 16th century, knot gardens became popular in England. Closely paralleling similarly-designed gardens in Italy at the time, these intricately-woven knot gardens were formed from ribbons of rosemary, thyme, and hyssop (dwarf boxwood was used later in the 17th century).
By the early 17th century, French formal designs were strongly influencing gardens in England. But a new century was at hand, and the geometric grandeur that belonged to the 17th century was soon to be deposed.
Early in the 18th century, during the reign of Queen Anne, the formal gardens of the past century were swept away by an overwhelming call for more natural-looking landscapes. Many writers made fun of popular topiaries. The tight control and geometric vistas were replaced by soft contours and gentle curves. Straight allees were replaced by more natural clusters of trees although still very puposefully planted to frame the landscape.
In the 19th century, during the long reign of Queen Victoria, new discoveries inspired innovative designs for English gardens. Professional plant hunters traveled the world, collecting hundreds of new specimens of trees, shrubs, and annuals. Annuals both newly discovered and those introduced in the 18th century, offered gardeners an array of colors. Vibrant flowers, including salvia, lobelia, zinnias, gazanias, pelargoniums, calceolarias, petunias, and verbenas added to the excitement.
In the mid-1800's, sheet-glass manufacturing was invented, and greenhouses became very popular. The greenhouses enabled seedsmen, nurseries, and gardeners to raise tender annual species from around the world. As the glass became less expensive, greenhouses became more accessible to the middle class, allowing them to join in the frenzy of raising bedding plants.
By the late 19th century, there was a movement once again toward an informal, natural style of gardening, with advocates such as William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll. The advocates of this movement viewed the carpet-bedding techniques of the mid-Victorian era as garish and far too busy, preferring a garden more closely tied to the classic English cottage garden, which style of gardening is still a major influence in many gardens through-out the world today..
This message was edited Jul 2, 2008 10:13 AM
