Garden

Renaissance garden in Pieskowa Skała, Poland
A kaiyu-shiki or strolling Japanese garden
The Sunken Garden of Butchart Gardens, Victoria, British Columbia
The back garden of the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, India

A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has traditionally been a more general one. Zoos, which display wild animals in simulated natural habitats, were formerly called zoological gardens.[1][2] Western gardens are almost universally based on plants, with garden often signifying a shortened form of botanical garden.

The etymology of the word refers to enclosure: it is from Middle English gardin, from Anglo-French gardin, jardin, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German gart, an enclosure.[3] The words yard, court, and Latin hortus (meaning "garden," hence horticulture and orchard), are cognates—all referring to an enclosed space.[4]

The term "garden" in British English refers to an enclosed area of land, usually adjoining a building.[5] This would be referred to as a yard in American English.

Some traditional types of eastern gardens, such as Zen gardens, use plants such as parsley. Xeriscape gardens use local native plants that do not require irrigation or extensive use of other resources while still providing the benefits of a garden environment. Gardens may exhibit structural enhancements, sometimes called follies, including water features such as fountains, ponds (with or without fish), waterfalls or creeks, dry creek beds, statuary, arbors, trellises and more.

Some gardens are for ornamental purposes only, while some gardens also produce food crops, sometimes in separate areas, or sometimes intermixed with the ornamental plants. Food-producing gardens are distinguished from farms by their smaller scale, more labor-intensive methods, and their purpose (enjoyment of a hobby rather than produce for sale). Flower gardens combine plants of different heights, colors, textures, and fragrances to create interest and delight the senses.

Gardening is the activity of growing and maintaining the garden. This work is done by an amateur or professional gardener. A gardener might also work in a non-garden setting, such as a park, a roadside embankment, or other public space. Landscape architecture is a related professional activity with landscape architects tending to specialise in design for public and corporate clients.

Contents

Garden design

The tropical garden found in the Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore in Singapore
Flower garden

Garden design is the creation of plans for the layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals. Most professional garden designers are trained in principles of design and in horticulture, and have an expert knowledge and experience of using plants. Some professional garden designers are also landscape architects, a more formal level of training that usually requires an advanced degree and often a state license. Elements of garden design include the layout of hard landscape, such as paths, rockeries, walls, water features, sitting areas and decking, as well as the plants themselves, with consideration for their horticultural requirements, their season-to-season appearance, lifespan, growth habit, size, speed of growth, and combinations with other plants and landscape features. Consideration is also given to the maintenance needs of the garden, including the time or funds available for regular maintenance, which can affect the choices of plants regarding speed of growth, spreading or self-seeding of the plants, whether annual or perennial, and bloom-time, and many other characteristics.

The most important consideration in any garden design is, how the garden will be used, followed closely by the desired stylistic genres, and the way the garden space will connect to the home or other structures in the surrounding areas. All of these considerations are subject to the limitations of the budget. Budget limitations can be addressed by a simpler garden style with fewer plants and less costly hardscape materials, seeds rather than sod for lawns, and plants that grow quickly; alternately, garden owners may choose to create their garden over time, area by area.

Elements of a garden

The elements of a garden consist of the following:

Natural conditions and materials:

Constructed elements:

Uses for the garden space

A garden can have aesthetic, functional, and recreational uses:

Types of gardens

Checkered garden in Tours, France
Zen garden, Ryōan-ji
French formal garden in the Loire Valley
Bristol Zoo, England
Castelo Branco, Portugal
Hualien, Taiwan

Gardens may feature a particular plant or plant type(s);

Gardens may feature a particular style or aesthetic:

Types of garden:

Watering gardens

See rainwater, sprinkler system, drip irrigation, tap water, greywater and hand pump.

History

In art and literature

Other similar spaces

Other outdoor spaces that are similar to gardens include:

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Garden history : philosophy and design, 2000 BC--2000 AD, Tom Turner. New York: Spon Press, 2005. ISBN 0415317487
  2. ↑ The earth knows my name : food, culture, and sustainability in the gardens of ethnic Americans, Patricia Klindienst. Boston: Beacon Press, c2006. ISBN 0807085626
  3. ↑ [1] Etymology of the modern word gardin at Merriam Webster.
  4. ↑ http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/garden.html Etymology of words referring to enclosures, probably from a Sanskrit stem. Also walled cities, as in Stalingrad, and the Russian word for city, gorod. Gird and girdle are also related.
  5. ↑ The Compact Oxford English Dictionary

External links

Horticulture and Gardening
Gardens
Garden · Garden design · Arboretum
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Horticulture
Horticulture · Urban agriculture · Intercropping · Plant · Botany
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