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75-555: The traditional kitchen garden , vegetable garden , also known as a potager (from the French jardin potager ) or in Scotland a kailyaird , is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for growing edible plants and often some medicinal plants , especially historically. The plants are grown for domestic use; though some seasonal surpluses are given away or sold,

150-410: A flower garden that exists for aesthetic purposes. It is a small-scale form of vegetable growing . A vegetable garden typically includes a compost heap , and several plots or divided areas of land, intended to grow one or two types of plant in each plot. Plots may also be divided into rows with an assortment of vegetables grown in the different rows. It is usually located to the rear of a property in

225-402: A physic garden ), among others. A kitchen garden can be created by planting different herbs in pots or containers, with the added benefit of mobility. Although not all herbs thrive in pots or containers, some herbs do better than others. Mint, a fragrant yet invasive herb, is an example of an herb that is advisable to keep in a container or it will take over the whole garden. These are open to

300-441: A central cavity gently heated by furnaces. Certainly walls leave more traces behind for the garden archaeologist. The hedge, Estienne says, can be planted with red and white gooseberry bushes, medlar and olive trees , woodbine , whitethorn, wild apples, brambles, and eglantiness . Lattices were woven from willow branches and every year renewed, unless made with juniper poles that had been reinforced with charred oak . In

375-400: A commercial operation growing a variety of vegetables is more commonly termed a market garden (or a farm ). The kitchen garden is different not only in its history , but also its functional design . It differs from an allotment in that a kitchen garden is on private land attached or very close to the dwelling. It is regarded as essential that the kitchen garden could be quickly accessed by

450-549: A complement to home or architecture, but conceived as independent spaces, arranged to grow and display flowers and ornamental plants. Gardeners demonstrated their artistry in knot gardens , with complex arrangements most commonly included interwoven box hedges , and less commonly fragrant herbs like rosemary . Sanded paths run between the hedgings of open knots whereas closed knots were filled with single colored flowers. The knot and parterre gardens were always placed on level ground, and elevated areas reserved for terraces from which

525-837: A corruption of either the Dutch word kruisbes or the allied German Krausbeere , or of the earlier forms of the French groseille . Alternatively, the word has been connected to the Middle High German krus ('curl, crisped'), in Latin as grossularia . However, the Oxford English Dictionary takes the more literal derivation from goose and berry as probable because "the grounds on which plants and fruits have received names associating them with animals are so often inexplicable that

600-482: A few significant gardens were found in Britain which were developed under the influence of the continent. Britain's homegrown domestic gardening traditions were mostly practical in purpose, rather than aesthetic, unlike the grand gardens found mostly on castle grounds, and less commonly in universities. Tudor Gardens emphasized contrast rather than transitions, distinguished by color and illusion. They were not intended as

675-461: A few years. Nevertheless, bushes planted from seed also rapidly reach maturity, exhibit similar pest-tolerance, and yield heavily. Fruit is produced on lateral spurs and the previous year's shoots. Gooseberries must be pruned to insolate the interior and make space for the next year's branches, as well as reduce scratching from the spines when picking. Overladen branches can be (and often are) cut off complete with berries without substantially harming

750-585: A hobby or self-sustenance rather than producing for sale, as in a market garden ). Flower gardens combine plants of different heights, colors, textures, and fragrances to create interest and delight the senses. The most common form today is a residential or public 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. Western gardens are almost universally based on plants, with garden , which etymologically implies enclosure , often signifying

825-404: A huge, if temporary, upsurge in growing vegetables in small gardens, with much encouragement from the government Ministry of Food . In modern gardening, there has been interest in integrating the growing of food plants within a mainly ornamental garden; fruit trees and cooking herbs are the simplest and most popular expression of this. In large country house gardens, the walls also served to hide

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900-623: A 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 an occupational 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. Most gardens consist of

975-612: A mixture of natural and constructed elements, although even very 'natural' gardens are always an inherently artificial creation. Natural elements present in a garden principally comprise flora (such as trees and weeds ), fauna (such as arthropods and birds), soil, water, air and light. Constructed elements include not only paths, patios , decking, sculptures, drainage systems, lights and buildings (such as sheds , gazebos , pergolas and follies ), but also living constructions such as flower beds , ponds and lawns . Garden needs of maintenance are also taken into consideration. Including

1050-473: A network have been influenced to grow their own vegetables, the community can reach a tipping point , in which a majority of people transition to a new habit; a 2018 study published in Nature claims that with only 25 per cent of a population adopting a behavioral change, a minority perspective was able to overturn the majority. Organic horticulture , or organic gardening, has become increasingly popular for

1125-511: A plant of rather dry places, will do well in moist land, if drained. The gooseberry was more populous in North America before it was discovered that it carries blister rust , deadly to certain pines, resulting in its removal from forest areas. Black bears, various birds and small mammals eat the berries, while game animals, coyotes, foxes and raccoons browse the foliage. Humans cultivate gooseberries as insect habitats or directly for

1200-927: A plot of land made available by local councils or charities, often specified that only edible plants were to be grown. According to Estienne, of the planted crops, turnips required the most room, and planted next to these were coleworts , and a path leading to plots of sorrel , arugula , parsley , spinach , beets , and orach , then separated from the greens another path to the root vegetables, leeks , onions , garlic , carrots , and scallions , and so on for edible flowers and winter potherbs like thyme , sage , lavender , rosemary , hyssop , southern wormwood , savoury , lemon balm , basil , costmary , spikenard , chamomile , and pennyroyal . Marigolds could grow perennially in untilled fields, and their juice and flowers were reputed to have many benefits from soothing eye irritation to relieving tooth pain. Strawberry juice and wine were rumored to have similar benefits for

1275-893: A preferred host plant for comma butterfly ( Polygonia c-album ), whose larvae frequently feed upon the plant during the development stage, v-moth ( Macaria wauaria ), and gooseberry sawfly ( Nematus ribesii ). Nematus ribesii grubs will bury themselves in the ground to pupate; on hatching into adult form, they lay their eggs, which hatch into larvae on the underside of gooseberry leaves. Gooseberries are edible and can be eaten raw, or cooked as an ingredient in desserts, such as pies , fools and crumbles . Early pickings are generally sour and more appropriate for culinary use. This includes most supermarket gooseberries, which are often picked before fully ripe to increase shelf life. Gooseberries are also used to flavour beverages such as sodas , flavoured waters , or milk , and can be made into fruit wines and teas . Gooseberries can be preserved in

1350-549: A shortened form of botanical garden . Some traditional types of eastern gardens, such as Zen gardens , however, use plants sparsely or not at all. Landscape gardens, on the other hand, such as the English landscape gardens first developed in the 18th century, may omit flowers altogether. Landscape architecture is a related professional activity with landscape architects tending to engage in design at many scales and working on both public and private projects. The etymology of

1425-758: A small enclosed area of land, usually adjoining a building. This would be referred to as a yard in American English . A garden can have aesthetic , functional, and recreational uses: The earliest recorded Chinese gardens were created in the valley of the Yellow River , during the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC). These gardens were large enclosed parks where the kings and nobles hunted game, or where fruit and vegetables were grown. Early inscriptions from this period, carved on tortoise shells, have three Chinese characters for garden, you , pu and yuan . You

1500-400: A supplement to their family's diet . Food grown in the back yard consumes little if any fuel for shipping or maintenance, and the grower can be sure of what exactly was used to grow it. The beneficial effects on the sustainability of food as well as in reducing greenhouse gas emissions related to agriculture by growing one’s own food (for example, growing food locally reduces food miles ,

1575-635: A symbol for a plantation or a pomegranate tree. A famous royal garden of the late Shang dynasty was the Terrace, Pond and Park of the Spirit ( Lingtai, Lingzhao Lingyou ) built by King Wenwang west of his capital city, Yin . The park was described in the Classic of Poetry this way: Another early royal garden was Shaqui , or the Dunes of Sand , built by the last Shang ruler, King Zhou (1075–1046 BC). It

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1650-462: A winding stream". Korean gardens are a type of garden described as being natural, informal, simple and unforced, seeking to merge with the natural world. They have a history that goes back more than two thousand years, but are little known in the west. The oldest records date to the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC – 668 AD) when architecture and palace gardens showed a development noted in

1725-427: Is a common name for many species of Ribes (which also includes currants ), as well as a large number of plants of similar appearance, and also several unrelated plants (see List of gooseberries ). The berries of those in the genus Ribes (sometimes placed in the genus Grossularia ) are edible and may be green, orange, red, purple, yellow, white, or black. The goose in gooseberry has been mistakenly seen as

1800-423: Is grown in some hilly districts with tolerable success. The gooseberry in the south of England will grow well in cool situations and may sometimes be seen in gardens near London flourishing under the partial shade of apple trees , but in the north it needs full exposure to the sun to bring the fruit to perfection. It will succeed in almost any soil but prefers a rich loam or black alluvium, and, though naturally

1875-691: Is located at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire , but is too simple to attract much interest. During the reign of Charles II , many new Baroque style country houses were built; while in England Oliver Cromwell sought to destroy many Tudor, Jacobean and Caroline style gardens. Garden design is the process of creating plans for the layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Gardens may be designed by garden owners themselves, or by professionals. Professional garden designers tend to be trained in principles of design and horticulture, and have

1950-633: Is uncertain whether the Romans were acquainted with the gooseberry, though it may possibly be alluded to in a vague passage of Pliny the Elder 's Natural History ; the hot summers of Italy , in ancient times as at present, would be unfavourable to its cultivation. Although gooseberries are now abundant in Germany and France , it does not appear to have been much grown there in the Middle Ages , though

2025-517: The Château de Blois . Beginning in 1528, King Francis I created new gardens at the Château de Fontainebleau , which featured fountains, parterres, a forest of pine trees brought from Provence , and the first artificial grotto in France. The Château de Chenonceau had two gardens in the new style, one created for Diane de Poitiers in 1551, and a second for Catherine de' Medici in 1560. In 1536,

2100-409: The Middle Ages , the kitchen garden was often a separate enclosure some way away from the main house. The Covent Garden area of London got its name as the kitchen garden for Westminster Abbey , though some distance from the abbey itself. In Renaissance times, the kitchen garden was rather close to the house, but by the mid-17th-century many were being moved further away, with a service road leading to

2175-455: The back garden or back yard. About a third of adults in the UK and America grow food in private or community kitchen or vegetable gardens. In World War II , many people had a " victory garden " which provided food and thus freed resources for the war effort. With worsening economic conditions and increased interest in organic and sustainable living, many people are turning to vegetable gardening as

2250-521: The 16th century, and a few years later it is mentioned in one of Thomas Tusser's quaint rhymes as an ordinary object of garden culture. Improved varieties were probably first raised by the skilful gardeners of Holland , whose name for the fruit, Kruisbezie , may have been corrupted into the present English vernacular word. Towards the end of the 18th century the gooseberry became a favourite object of cottage-horticulture, especially in Lancashire , where

2325-541: The French gardening traditions of Andre Mollet and Jacques Boyceau , from which the latter wrote: "All things, however beautiful they may be chosen, will be defective if they are not ordered and placed in proper symmetry." A good example of the French formal style are the Tuileries gardens in Paris which were originally designed during the reign of King Henry II in the mid-sixteenth century. The gardens were redesigned into

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2400-512: The Himalayas and peninsular India. In Britain , it is often found in copses and hedgerows and about old ruins, but the gooseberry has been cultivated for so long that it is difficult to distinguish wild bushes from feral ones, or to determine where the gooseberry fits into the native flora of the island. Common as it is now on some of the lower slopes of the Alps of Piedmont and Savoy , it

2475-783: The Isle of Wight, and parts of Beth Chatto 's garden in Essex, Sticky Wicket garden in Dorset, and the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens at Harlow Carr and Hyde Hall . Rain gardens absorb rainfall falling onto nearby hard surfaces, rather than sending it into stormwater drains. Gooseberry Gooseberry ( / ˈ ɡ uː s b ɛ r i / GOOSS -berr-ee or / ˈ ɡ uː z b ɛ r i / GOOZ -berr-ee (American and northern British) or / ˈ ɡ ʊ z b ər i / GUUZ -bər-ee (southern British))

2550-643: The Korean History of the Three Kingdoms . Gardening was not recognized as an art form in Europe until the mid 16th century when it entered the political discourse, as a symbol of the concept of the "ideal republic". Evoking utopian imagery of the Garden of Eden , a time of abundance and plenty where humans didn't know hunger or the conflicts that arose from property disputes. John Evelyn wrote in

2625-495: The architect Philibert de l'Orme , upon his return from Rome, created the gardens of the Château d'Anet following the Italian rules of proportion. The carefully prepared harmony of Anet, with its parterres and surfaces of water integrated with sections of greenery, became one of the earliest and most influential examples of the classic French garden. The French formal garden ( French : jardin à la française ) contrasted with

2700-404: The chronicle recorded: "The Emperor Keikō put a few carp into a pond, and rejoiced to see them morning and evening". The following year, "The Emperor launched a double-hulled boat in the pond of Ijishi at Ihare, and went aboard with his imperial concubine, and they feasted sumptuously together". In 486, the chronicle recorded that "The Emperor Kenzō went into the garden and feasted at the edge of

2775-468: The cook. Historically, most small country gardens were probably mainly or entirely used as kitchen gardens, but in large country houses the kitchen garden was a segregated area, normally rectangular and enclosed by a wall or hedge, walls being useful for training fruit trees as well as offering shelter from wind. Such large examples very often included greenhouses and furnace-heated hothouses for more tender delicacies, and also flowers for display in

2850-1245: The death of living beings outside the garden, such as local species extinction by indiscriminate plant collectors ; and climate change caused by greenhouse gases produced by gardening. Gardeners can help to prevent climate change in many ways, including the use of trees, shrubs, ground cover plants and other perennial plants in their gardens, turning garden waste into soil organic matter instead of burning it, keeping soil and compost heaps aerated, avoiding peat, switching from power tools to hand tools or changing their garden design so that power tools are not needed, and using nitrogen-fixing plants instead of nitrogen fertiliser. Climate change will have many impacts on gardens; some studies suggest most of them will be negative. Gardens also contribute to climate change. Greenhouse gases can be produced by gardeners in many ways. The three main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide , methane , and nitrous oxide . Gardeners produce carbon dioxide directly by overcultivating soil and destroying soil carbon , by burning garden waste on bonfires , by using power tools which burn fossil fuel or use electricity generated by fossil fuels , and by using peat . Gardeners produce methane by compacting

2925-485: The design principles of the English landscape garden ( French : jardin à l'anglaise ) namely, to "force nature" instead of leaving it undisturbed. Typical French formal gardens had "parterres, geometrical shapes and neatly clipped topiary", in contrast to the English style of garden in which "plants and shrubs seem to grow naturally without artifice." By the mid-17th century axial symmetry had ascended to prominence in

3000-516: 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 budget limitations. Budget limitations can be addressed by a simpler garden style with fewer plants and less costly hard landscape materials, seeds rather than sod for lawns, and plants that grow quickly; alternatively, garden owners may choose to create their garden over time, area by area. Gardeners may cause environmental damage by

3075-469: The distance food travels, and therefore reduces the greenhouse gas emissions associated with that travel) can be increased through social contagion , the process through which behaviour, emotions, or conditions spread spontaneously through a group or network . A 2019 study found evidence that the spread of vegetable gardens in urban space displays was the result of neighbors seeing vegetable gardens near them and deciding to grow their own. Once enough people in

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3150-508: The early 17th century, "there is not a more laborious life then is that of a good Gard'ners; but a labour full of tranquility and satisfaction; Natural and Instructive, and such as (if any) contributes to Piety and Contemplation." During the era of Enclosures , the agrarian collectivism of the feudal age was idealized in literary "fantasies of liberating regression to garden and wilderness". Following his campaign in Italy in 1495, where he saw

3225-555: The eyes, and, according to Estienne, the berries themselves had "no neede of greate toile or tilling". Modern researchers continue to study whether reduced tillage improves weed control and yield for strawberry plants. Other plants found in the kitchen garden: asparagus , artichoke , sow thistle , endive , chicory , watercress , scallions , chives , parsnips , purslane , smallage , tarragon , borage , bugloss , radishes , rapeseed , skirret , poppy , mustard , cucumbers and gourds . Citrus and melons could be part of

3300-438: The form of jams , dried fruit , as the primary or a secondary ingredient in pickling , or stored in sugar syrup . Pastry dishes often pair gooseberry with flavors such as hazelnut , honey , raspberry , strawberry , and white chocolate . Raw gooseberries are 88% water, 10% carbohydrates , and 1% each of fat and protein . In a reference amount of 100 g (3.5 oz), raw gooseberries supply 44 calories and are

3375-538: The formal French style for the Sun King Louis XIV . The gardens were ordered into symmetrical lines: long rows of elm or chestnut trees, clipped hedgerows, along with parterres, "reflect[ing] the orderly triumph of man's will over nature." The French landscape garden was influenced by the English landscape garden and gained prominence in the late eighteenth century. Before the Grand Manner era,

3450-403: The garden has been extended, the new areas mostly not planted with vegetables). This striking scheme has been highly effective in turning the gardens into a tourist attraction, but is in no way historically authentic. A vegetable garden (also known as a vegetable patch or vegetable plot ) is a garden that exists to grow vegetables and other plants useful for human consumption, in contrast to

3525-493: The gardens and castles of Naples, King Charles VIII brought Italian craftsmen and garden designers , such as Pacello da Mercogliano , from Naples and ordered the construction of Italian-style gardens at his residence at the Château d'Amboise and at Château Gaillard, another private résidence in Amboise. His successor Henry II , who had also travelled to Italy and had met Leonardo da Vinci , created an Italian garden nearby at

3600-473: The gooseberry to perfection, and it may be grown successfully even in the most northern parts of Scotland ; indeed, the flavour of the fruit is said to improve with increasing latitude. In Norway even, the bush flourishes in gardens on the west coast nearly up to the Arctic Circle, and it is found wild as far north as 63°. The dry summers of the French and German plains are less suited to it, though it

3675-507: The home with very little maintenance. Potagers can disguise their function of providing for a home in a wide array of forms—from the cottage garden to the formality of a knot garden . The owner of one of the Loire chateaux in France, the Château de Villandry decided many decades ago, to recreate a French formal garden with an elaborate geometrical scheme of beds surrounded by low hedges, but planted with kitchen garden plants (more recently

3750-421: The house; an orangery was the ultimate type. In large houses, the kitchen garden was typically placed diagonally to the rear and side of the house, not impeding the views from the front and rear facades, but still quick to access. In some cases, hardy flowers for cutting were grown outside there, rather than in the flower garden . A large country house hardly expected to buy any vegetables, herbs or fruit, and

3825-443: The inappropriateness in the meaning does not necessarily give good grounds for believing that the word is an etymological corruption". The French for gooseberry is groseille à maquereau , translated as 'mackerel berries', due to their use in a sauce for mackerel in old French cuisine. The word first appears in written English in the 16th Century. In Britain, gooseberries may informally be called goosegogs . Gooseberry bush

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3900-557: The intricacy of the gardens could be viewed. Jacobean gardens were described as "a delightful confusion" by Henry Wotton in 1624. Under the influence of the Italian Renaissance , Caroline gardens began to shed some of the chaos of earlier designs, marking the beginning of a trends towards symmetrical unified designs that took the building architecture into account, and featuring an elevated terrace from which home and garden could be viewed. The only surviving Caroline garden

3975-529: The kitchen garden also, if the conditions of soil and climate were such as to support their growth. In some modern gardens, edible plants and especially herbs are planted alongside ornamental plants. Fruit trees are one of the most common ways of doing this. The goal is to make the function of providing food aesthetically pleasing. Plants are chosen as much for their functionality as for their color and form. Many are trained to grow upward. A well-designed potager can provide food as well as cut flowers and herbs for

4050-408: The kitchen garden provided somewhere for them to occupy themselves at these times. Mostly, visitors were probably not expected to venture inside without leave. But some owners, from Louis XIV downwards, liked to show guests the kitchen garden, especially if they knew they had an interest. In the gardens of Versailles , the enormous potager area, not contiguous with the main gardens, had a wall that

4125-414: The kitchen garden, as "a place of base labour ... from the more polite areas", which included the often very extensive fruit gardens and orchards. The gardeners were often, depending on the season, the number of guests, and the whim of the owner, expected to keep out of the main "best garden" during the fairly predictable parts of the day when the family and guests were likely to be walking in the garden, and

4200-490: The main house. At Versailles a public road needs to be crossed to reach it. In the UK, by the 19th century, as the breeding of vegetable cultivars greatly increased, a plethora of magazines, societies and competitions in local or county fairs, supported what had become (and remains) a popular form of specialist gardening. Some gardeners concentrated on mere size, leading to monstrous (and largely tasteless) strains of vegetables such as leeks . The new allotments , small pieces of

4275-635: The modern home gardener. The herb garden is often a separate space in the garden, devoted to growing a specific group of plants known as herbs. These gardens may be informal patches of plants, or they may be carefully designed, even to the point of arranging and clipping the plants to form specific patterns, as in a knot garden . Herb gardens may be purely functional or they may include a blend of functional and ornamental plants. The herbs are usually used to flavour food in cooking, though they may also be used in other ways, such as discouraging pests, providing pleasant scents, or serving medicinal purposes (such as

4350-607: The park in the Vana-krida chapter. Shilparatna , a text from the sixteenth century, states that flower gardens or public parks should be located in the northern portion of a town. The earliest recorded Japanese gardens were the pleasure gardens of the Emperors and nobles. They were mentioned in several brief passages of the Nihon Shoki , the first chronicle of Japanese history, published in 720 CE. In spring 74 CE,

4425-487: The plant. Heavy nitrogen composting produces excessive growth, weakening the bush to mildew. Gooseberries, like other members of genus Ribes are banned or restricted in several states of the United States of America because they are secondary (telial) hosts for white pine blister rust . Gooseberry bushes ( Ribes ) are hosts to magpie moth ( Abraxas grossulariata ) caterpillars . Gooseberry plants are also

4500-559: The public. Garden Gardens often have design features including statuary, follies , pergolas , trellises , stumperies , dry creek beds, and water features such as fountains , ponds (with or without fish ), waterfalls or creeks. Some gardens are for ornamental purposes only, while others 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

4575-504: The roasted meat from the trees. Later Chinese philosophers and historians cited this garden as an example of decadence and bad taste. During the Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC), in 535 BC, the Terrace of Shanghua , with lavishly decorated palaces, was built by King Jing of the Zhou dynasty . In 505 BC, an even more elaborate garden, the Terrace of Gusu , was begun. It was located on

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4650-515: The side of a mountain, and included a series of terraces connected by galleries, along with a lake where boats in the form of blue dragons navigated. From the highest terrace, a view extended as far as Lake Tai , the Great Lake. Manasollasa is a twelfth century Sanskrit text that offers details on garden design and a variety of other subjects. Both public parks and woodland gardens are described, with about 40 types of trees recommended for

4725-448: The soil and making it anaerobic, and by allowing their compost heaps to become compacted and anaerobic. Gardeners produce nitrous oxide by applying excess nitrogen fertiliser when plants are not actively growing so that the nitrogen in the fertiliser is converted by soil bacteria to nitrous oxide. Some gardeners manage their gardens without using any water from outside the garden. Examples in Britain include Ventnor Botanic Garden on

4800-504: The surplus was often distributed as presents; the walled example at Croome Court in England covers seven acres, and the gardens have a large "Temple Greenhouse", an orangery in the form of a Roman Temple . A symbol of American self-sufficiency and the colonial homestead , practical kitchen gardens were the center of home life in early America. In Europe, especially Britain, the difficulties in food supply during World War II resulted in

4875-511: The sweet fruits. Numerous cultivars have been developed for both commercial and domestic use. Of special note are Ribes 'Careless', 'Greenfinch', 'Invicta', 'Leveller', and 'Whinham's Industry', to which the Royal Horticultural Society has awarded Garden Merit . Ribes gooseberries are commonly raised from cuttings rather than seed; cuttings planted in the autumn will take root quickly and begin to bear fruit within

4950-418: The time or funds available for regular maintenance, (this can affect the choices of plants regarding speed of growth) spreading or self-seeding of the plants (annual or perennial), bloom-time, and many other characteristics. Garden design can be roughly divided into two groups, formal and naturalistic gardens. The most important consideration in any garden design is how the garden will be used, followed closely by

5025-533: The way they garden, or they may enhance their local environment. Damage by gardeners can include direct destruction of natural habitats when houses and gardens are created; indirect habitat destruction and damage to provide garden materials such as peat , rock for rock gardens, and by the use of tapwater to irrigate gardens; the death of living beings in the garden itself, such as the killing not only of slugs and snails but also their predators such as hedgehogs and song thrushes by metaldehyde slug killer;

5100-407: The wild fruit was held in some esteem medicinally for the cooling properties of its acid juice in fevers ; while the old English name, Fea-berry , still surviving in some provincial dialects, indicates that it was similarly valued in Britain, where it was planted in gardens at a comparatively early period. William Turner describes the gooseberry in his Herball , written about the middle of

5175-602: The word gardening refers to enclosure : it is from Middle English gardin , from Anglo-French gardin , jardin , of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German gard , gart , an enclosure or compound, as in Stuttgart . See Grad (Slavic settlement) for more complete etymology. The words yard , court , and Latin hortus (meaning "garden", hence horticulture and orchard), are cognates—all referring to an enclosed space. The term "garden" in British English refers to

5250-539: The working cotton -spinners raised numerous varieties from seed , their efforts having been chiefly directed to increasing the size of the fruit. Of the many hundred sorts enumerated in recent horticultural works, few perhaps equal in flavour some of the older denizens of the fruit-garden, such as the Old Rough Red and Hairy Amber . The climate of the British Isles seems peculiarly adapted to bring

5325-525: Was 19th-century slang for pubic hair , and from this comes the saying that babies are "born under a gooseberry bush". Gooseberry growing was popular in 19th-century Britain. The 1879 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica described gooseberries thus: The gooseberry is indigenous to many parts of Europe and western Asia , growing naturally in alpine thickets and rocky woods in the lower country, from France eastward, well into

5400-448: Was a royal garden where birds and animals were kept, while pu was a garden for plants. During the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), yuan became the character for all gardens. The old character for yuan is a small picture of a garden; it is enclosed in a square which can represent a wall, and has symbols which can represent the plan of a structure, a small square which can represent a pond, and

5475-633: Was composed of an earth terrace, or tai , which served as an observation platform in the center of a large square park. It was described in one of the early classics of Chinese literature, the Records of the Grand Historian ( Shiji ). According to the Shiji , one of the most famous features of this garden was the Wine Pool and Meat Forest (酒池肉林). A large pool, big enough for several small boats,

5550-401: Was constructed on the palace grounds, with inner linings of polished oval shaped stones from the seashore. The pool was then filled with wine. A small island was constructed in the middle of the pool, where trees were planted, which had skewers of roasted meat hanging from their branches. King Zhou and his friends and concubines drifted in their boats, drinking the wine with their hands and eating

5625-665: Was thick enough for visitors to accompany the king in walking along the top for a better view, as on castle battlements. The French doctor and printer, Charles Estienne , wrote in detail about the 16th century kitchen garden in Maison Rustique ; his book was largely compiled from classical authors. This practical garden was to be separated from the pleasure gardens, enclosed by a thick hedge or wall. Estienne viewed hedges as more resilient, cost effective and were easier to repair and maintain, but at least in later periods, walls seem to have been more usual; some were hot walls , with

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