Gardening roots and culture.

GARDENING - ROOTS AND CUTURE

The cultivation of plants is a worldwide occupation. The basic need to feed ourselves is the root of our connection with plants, and in most cultures the significance of a bountiful harvest has lead to a symbolic veneration of plants, an appreciation of their beauty that is intrinsically bound up with a deeper significance in health and wellbeing. The cultivation of plants can be observed as an indicator of social and economic dynamics within a culture - in functional, leisure or and ceremonial forms. But this unique symbiosis between humans and plants has another dynamic – climate.

The varying climate regions of the world can make bountiful or harsh growing conditions, they may make very specialised agriculture necessary – in terms of species chosen or the methods used to grow them, perhaps relying on the ingenuity of humans to eek out a living against the odds. In northern regions of China there are areas of near desert where fruit trees are grown with their roots and lower trunks in tunnels – to keep the roots cool and make irrigation easier and more efficient in cool damp conditions, while the crown of the tree and its ripening fruit enjoys full sun. Harsh desert conditions have given rise to perhaps our earliest recorded style of garden, the Persian enclosed paradise garden with ponds and fountains, fruit trees, captive birds, cool shade and scented roses – all within sheltering walls.


In the tropics there are many countries where the landscape has been profoundly affected by the cultivation of rice on terraces or paddies. This can be seen in the spectacular countryside of Bali where the topography of steep valleys has been accentuated by the stepped levels, imitating a cartographer’s contour lines. The abundance of water in Bali is vital to rice and Colocasia escuelenta – or Taro production, both of which thrive in shallow water. Also of course as an island the sea is a major food source. Many gardens and temples in Bali are built around ponds and canals with mythical creatures and deities spouting water into them and channelling it between multiple pools. They are important gathering places socially and religiously but also for bathing and washing clothes – and are usually complimented by surrounding planting including sacred trees where offerings are made, and ornamental planting abundant in flowers which are used to make many of the decorative and symbolic offerings at shrines.

Mediterranean climates can yield bountiful harvests in many types of agriculture that are not based around lush grazing. Linear patterns of olive and almond groves have a similar impact on the landscape to rice paddies, vineyards and orange groves similarly. The need to work early and stop in the midday heat, followed by working late with social and family time extending late into the cool night has given rise to outdoor gathering places like squares and piazzas. These are focal points for whole communities, with an Islamic influence apparent here in the courtyard settings for many of these spaces. The dryness of Mediterranean conditions made the use of wood as a flooring material outside much more common in America – particularly California, than in moister and cooler Europe. In Japan where confined Island space makes every square metre of habitable space precious, small internal courtyard gardens with strictly controlled proportional harmony in their composition and content are a common form of garden.


Rather than agricultural practices the wild beauty of mountainous regions have also inspired us to create certain styles of garden. Locations like high altitude alpine meadows in Switzerland and heaths like the Velt and Fynbos in South Africa, with their acres of wild flower carpets have created an idyll for temperate zones, of abundant grass with luxuriant flowers as far as the eye can see. Growing at high altitude true alpine plants have adapted to live in harsh exposed conditions by forming low hummocks, in scree or shale with frequent coverings of snow. In the Himalayas where the tropical climate of the foothills give way to thin air and alpine conditions different north and south facing sides of valleys can hold many different species that have adapted to micro climates just a few hundred metres apart. These natural setting have influenced western horticulture and bought many species into popular cultivation.

In temperate Europe we can grow a huge range of plants from all over the world but we don’t have as strong an identity or cultural style in our gardens. We are eclectic and in a way free from a strong cultural influence – we can simply express ourselves. However I think that the various forms of media have created a gardening culture which has detached itself from the root of gardening (if you’ll forgive the pun). With no vernacular to ground us and the loss of a pure design approach where the global palette is referenced, we seem to have an entrenched ‘pop paradigm’ where the use of limited a set of features and preconceived components is widely accepted as ‘garden designing’ – something that has very little to do with what architects, artists, graphic designers or inventors know as – Design.