A wheat field at Bool Lagoon
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Mankind has been practicing horticulture for at least 11,000 years. We know from archaeological evidence that rice was grown in China in about 9,500 B.C. Wheat and barley were grown by people in the area of present-day Iraq in about 8,000 B.C. Around the same time, millet was grown in Africa. Man probably began experimenting with the cultivation of wild plants well before then. Horticulture played an essential role in the development of civilization. Once people learned how to grow large crops, they began to work together in farming communities, which led them eventually to organize themselves into larger entities such as towns, and then states and countries. Horticulture also helped to civilize people by encouraging them to invent more efficient tools and develop sciences. Throughout history, societies have changed dramatically when people found new ways to increase food production.

Plant Trivia Timeline
Where Different Food Crops Originated

The garden as the paradise man strives toward is a concept from ancient times that is part of many cultures. The Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible, for instance, begins with the story of man's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The legend perhaps began among the ancient peoples who lived along the Tigris River, where archaeologists have found some of the earliest evidence of large-scale horticulture, and where local traditions place the Garden of Eden in the river's fertile marshes. "Eden" may have been derived from the word Edinn, which was the Sumerian name for the Plain of Babylon. The ancient Mesopotamian civilizations of this area, Sumeria, Babylonia and Assyria, along with Egypt, developed the first great horticultural societies. The Mesopotamians grew wheat, barley, dates, oats, figs, olives and grapes and knew how to ferment beer and wine. The first known "farmers almanac" dates back to 1700 B.C. Sumeria -- the publication is a cuneiform tablet on which a farmer told his son what farming duties to perform throughout the year.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon
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We believe the Egyptians, who developed extensive and sophisticated irrigation systems, were the first to design and cultivate formal, domestic ornamental gardens, perhaps as early as 2800 B.C. The oldest surviving garden plan -- for the garden of a court official in Thebes -- dates back to about 1400 B.C. Egyptian tomb paintings depict gardens situated within the walled enclosures around homes. Fig and date trees and trellises for grapes and roses were neatly laid out around rectangular fish ponds. Horticulture as a major art form may have reached its peak in ancient times with the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The gardens of the Mesopotamian king's palace were considered by the Greeks to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World around 600 B.C. They were built on top of roofs and columned terraces and were watered from the Euphrates River by a complicated mechanical irrigation system. The Chinese trace the earliest gardens of Suzhou, their "City of Gardens," back to the same time period, and the first private Chinese garden back to the 4th century A.D. Although Chinese gardens also were walled, they were not "structured" in the Western manner -- they were designed to appear as low-key and natural as possible, as "escapes" into nature for scholars, poets and high officials who had fallen out of favor in government. They had fewer flowers than the gardens of the Middle East, and had natural-shaped ponds and lakes. In contrast, the ancient Persians had walled, flowery, formal "paradise gardens," irrigated by pools and canals. Today representations of these gardens can be seen in the designs of Persian carpets. Ancient Greek gardens generally were simple, grown within the walled and colonnaded central courtyards of homes. Plants -- especially the occasional unique specimen from a far-away place -- were grown in pots. The Greeks focused most of their horticultural efforts on vineyards and fruit and olive groves. The Romans developed agriculture extensively and to a high level of sophistication. Their villa gardens were modeled on Greek gardens but were more elaborate and sensual. They had pools, fountains, trellises with vines and walkways among the plants. One of the most famous was that of the Emperor Nero's palace, the Golden House, built in the first century A.D. on about 300 acres in central Rome.

Food for Thought online exhibit about food and farming in the ancient Mediterranean world
In a Chinese Garden a story set in the time of the Qin Dynasty that describes the daily activities of an elderly man as he moves about his garden

Herbals that listed plants for medicinal use were the first attempts to make records of plants. But the scientific study of plants really got its start with the Greek philosopher Aristotle and his followers around 350 B.C. Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus is known as the father of botany. Theophrastus eventually became the head of Aristotle's famous school, the Lycaeum, and bought an estate next to the school, where he grew a large garden and studied plants with his pupils. Alexander the Great sent plants from his Asian military expeditions back to Theophrastus for study. Theophrastus' garden is believed to be the first botanical garden, and his two books on botany, History of Plants ( Historia Plantarum ) and On Plants (De Causis Plantarums), were the first of their kind in the world. Several other Roman writers also made important contributions to horticultural literature, among them Cato, who in the second century B.C. wrote a description of everything that would be important in the management of a farm. In 37 B.C., the 80-year-old Roman writer Marcus Terentius Varro drafted instructions on farming in his On Rustic Affairs ( De Re Rustica ), so that his wife could run her estate after his death. At about the same time, the great Roman poet Virgil wrote the Georgics, four books in verse on farming. Natural History ( Naturalis Historia ), a book on farming and botany written by the Roman Pliny in the first century A.D., became a major source of information on horticulture in Europe during the Middle Ages. In 1471, Pietro Creszenzi of Bologna compiled the ancient works of Varro, Cato and Columnella into The Opus Ruralium Commodorum , which some consider to be the foundation of modern western gardening.

Hans Ludwig Fischer - Der Garten Des Generalife Bei Granada

Der Garten Des Generalife Bei Granada
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During the early Middle Ages, when most people in the West lost much of the ancients' knowledge, Greek and Roman knowledge of plants was preserved by Christian monasteries. The Vatican Library in Rome now houses some beautifully illustrated herbals translated by medieval priests from ancient Greek and Roman works. Medieval European gardens were small, mostly utilitarian, and protected from barbarian invaders within the fortified walls of monasteries and castles. Monastery cloister gardens usually contained herbs, potted plants and a well. A Medieval castle had a kitchen garden for vegetables, fruits and herbs, and also might have a grassy area and a private ornamental garden for the lord of the estate. Meanwhile, gardening thrived in the Muslim world, where gardens of flowers, trees and shrubs were cultivated in enclosed courts with elaborate colored tilework, pools and fountains. Water and shade were very important features of these gardens because of the dry terrain of the Middle East. During the Middle Ages the Moors built similar gardens in Spain, from whence the Muslim style of gardening was subsequently taken to South America by Spanish explorers and settlers. The Muslim garden style also was introduced into 17th- and 18th-century India by the Mughals -- the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, Pakistan, and the gardens of the Taj Mahal are among the most notable examples.

When tomatoes were brought to Europe from Central America, people were afraid to eat them. Belonging to the Nightshade family of plants, it was thought that the love apples were poisonous. They didn't become widely used in cooking until the early 1800s.

Japanese Garden
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While Europe remained in the Dark Ages, horticultural techniques flourished in the Far East. In China, homes, palaces and temples had enclosed gardens with trees, bridges, pavilions and artificial landscapes and lakes. Chinese gardens were planned like Chinese landscape scroll paintings, with a succession of views, or garden areas, for different experiences or moods. They were not overtly symmetrical like Western and Near Eastern gardens, but planned to look more natural, and included rocks as important features. Many lovely gardens were created in ancient Suzhou. Chinese also created a special miniature type of garden called penjing, the forerunner of Japanese bonsai gardens. The people of Japan adopted the Chinese garden style and refined it in their own way, incorporating much symbolism and planning each detail carefully, sometimes employing painters to create the perfect mood of peace and harmony. The most famous Japanese gardens were in the ancient capital of Kyoto. In the Americas, the Aztecs developed a sophisticated method of reclaiming swamp land in their creation of floating gardens for their crops in present-day Mexico. These chinampas were man-made islands of large, soil-covered mats woven from rushes and placed on stakes in shallow lakes in the area of what is now Mexico City. According to early Spanish explorers of the New World, the Incas of Peru had large pleasure gardens with ornamental ponds, fountains and terraced hills. Archeologists have determined that the Inca terraces of Moray were experimental stations used to develop different crop strains.

take a virtual tour of the Imperial Gardens of China's Forbidden City and the emperor's Summer Palace
Japanese Garden Database
History of Hydroponics

Europe experienced an agricultural revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries. As European cities became larger, many people no longer had the land to grow enough food individually, so horticulture became a major industry as large crop lands were developed in the countryside to supply cities. With the threat of barbarian invasions dying down and the emergence of the European Renaissance, European ornamental gardens became more elaborate. The baroque style was launched in Italy in the 15th century. The gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, near Rome, built in the mid-1600s, are among the most notable examples of this style. In formal Renaissance gardens, the patterns of planting were as important as the plants themselves. The French name for this design approach is parterre. European landscape design culminated in the17th century with the intricate and grand geometric patterns of the many gardens built by France's King Louis XIV. His gardens at Versailles, outside Paris, remain one of the world's great horticultural feats. The gardens of Elizabethan England were stylized with sculpted shrubs, mazes, statues and knot gardens. European ornamental gardening became something of a craze in the 17th century when the Age of Discovery and increasing international trade introduced new plants from Asia and the Americas. Tulips were brought to Europe from Turkey in the mid-1500s and people in Holland found them so attractive that demand for tulips in that country outstripped supply, resulting in the Dutch tulpenwoede, or tulipomania. Tulips were traded on the Dutch stock market for high prices and people mortgaged their homes and businesses to buy a single bulb. When the market crashed in 1637, many Dutch people were ruined financially. During this period flowers became a popular subject of European art, decoration and literature. Flemish and Dutch artists, in particular, made major contributions to world art with their baroque paintings of flower arrangements.

Aerial View of Monticello, Charlottesville, Virginia

Aerial View of Monticello
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In the 17th and 18th centuries, the English moved away from strict symmetrical formality in garden design and developed a more natural look. They preferred large grassy lawns and parks, and planted large areas of trees in the countryside. They also began to incorporate exotic elements inspired by Chinese, medieval and Roman gardens. This English garden style, termed "romantic" spread throughout Europe in the 18th Century and was introduced in America by Thomas Jefferson, at his Virginia estate, Monticello. The style was used in the mid-19th Century in New York's public Central Park, which became the model for landscape design in public parks all over the United States. Meanwhile, farming was revolutionized by new mechanical inventions such as Eli Whitney's cotton gin, making it possible to grow food on a large scale. Domestic gardens thus increasingly focused more on ornamental plants and less on edible plants. In the 19th century, garden design in Europe and America became more formal again and was shaped by Victorian tastes in architecture and adornment, and domestic gardens were divided into themes such as rose gardens, herb gardens, rock gardens, and period gardens. Conservatories for growing plants indoors became popular. During the "Gilded Age" in the United States, wealthy homeowners created lavish estates such as those along the James River in Virginia and the Hudson River in upstate New York, in Newport, Rhode Island, and in Palm Beach, Florida.

A Colonial American garden in New England
Native Horticulture in 17th-Century New England
American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920 U.S. Library of Congress online exhibit

Gardening trends in the 20th century included not only new methods and plants, but a return to more traditional methods (such as hydroponics and organic farming and more traditional plants (such as native plants). Suburbanization increased the size of average homes in North America and lawns became an important element in North American domestic gardens. With the expansion of urban areas, horticulturists became important partners in the design of inner-city revitalization projects, commercial and housing developments, and highways. Small family farms, unable to compete with large, industrialized farms, became fewer in the developed nations. In nations with large populations, such as those in East Asia, a shortage of land necessitated intensive horticultural cultivation with manpower and animals, rather than machines. In large tropical forests of the world, such as the Amazon, indigenous peoples continued to employ "slash and burn" agriculture, contributing to the depletion of the world's natural resources. The growth in world population during the 20th century presented a major challenge for 21st-century horticultural scientists to find new ways to produce more food on less land while conserving the world's natural resources; as well as for landscape designers to find new ways to use land to maximize people's quality of life in the midst of expanding urban areas.

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