XXX-XXI BC
Begining of gardens in Ancient Egypt
Already in the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt orchards, vineyards and vegetable gardens were popular.
The first description of a garden was found in the tomb of Methen, high official in Ancient Egypt, who work for King Sneferu, the first king of the Four Dynasty (c. XXVI-XXV BC).
XV BC
Queen Hatshepsut's plant expedition
The queen, who organized an expedition to the legendary land of Punt, as assumed at present, situated on the coast of contemporary Somaliland. The proof of this expedition can be found at the walls of her tomb in Deir-el-Bahri. These reliefs are also the proof of first attempts to transport and acclimatize foreign trees to new biotope.
XIII-VII BC
Gardens of Babylonians and Assyrians
The parklands, created in Mesopotamia, the Land of Two Rivers, were famous of their splendor. They covered also extensive hunting reserves.
VIII-VI BC
Hanging gardens
The attempts to create gardens on some types of artificial constructions were done even earlier in the region of Mesopotamia. These constructions consisted of terraces with irrigations canals.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, although the location of them is still discussed. According to some sources they are attributed to the legendary Assyrian queen Semiramis, according to other sources they were built by Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife.
Persian gardens
The Persian garden is the origin of the Islamic garden, and with its spread, the characteristics of Persian garden were transmitted to other parts of the world from India to Spain.
The characteristic feature of these gardens is their layout, called chahar bagh - a quadrilateral garden divided by walkways or flowing water into four smaller parts.
The oldest known Persian garden was built in Pasargadae in VI BC.
IV BC
The beginning of Chinese gardens
The first description Chinese garden can be found in poem wrtitten in IV BC.
II BC
The garden of Emperor Wu Ti (or Wudi) of Han Dynasty
The belief of Immortals, creatures having special power, were very strong among many Chinese emperors. They spent a lot of time and resources to find their dwelling places, legendary islands, held by enormous turtles, where there were splendid trees grown among palaces, made of precious stones and gold.
Emperor Wu TI was the first one, who decided to create a wonderful fabulous garden with lakes, islands and hills to lure them instead of searching for them.
II BC - II AD
Chahar bagh - first Persian gardens based on the quadrilateral layout
A chahar bagh is a quadrilateral garden divided into parts by water channels, the name of which comes from Persian words meaning "four gardens". The garden at Pasargadae in Iran is the oldest known one of this type.
Peristyle and villa gardens of Roman Empire
Peristyle gardens in inner court were characteristic for Roman houses, now only preserved in mural painting on walls of archaeological excavations. Larger and more impressive villa gardens were maintained away from imperial city in suburban areas.
VII
Gardens of Suzhou
After the Grand Canal was completed, strategically located Suzhou started to expire the period of the growth. Since that, it is also famous for its private gardens (up to XVIII century). The Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden and Lion Grove Garden are only the few most known ones among them.
VIII
Arabic gardens in Spain
The first Arabic gardens were built in Spain at the beginning of VIII century. They were (like other Islamic gardens) based on chahar bagh layout.
IX
Gardens of Kair and Bagdad
Kair and Bagdad are places where the examples of early Islamic gardens should be looked for. The Alkatai garden, founded near Kair, was famous of its grafted trees, dwarf palms as well as water ponds and canals, cages with exotic animals and birds. One of wonders of this garden was a mercury pond.
There were also splendid gardens in Bagdad. One of them belonged to Al-Mamun with i.a. tree palace. It was an artificial tree made of silver and gold situated on a pond island. The tin pond was another wonder of this garden (tin was more expensive than silver).
X
Medina Azahara
The residence in Medina Azahara were founded in 936 near Cordoba. The construction works lasted many years and resulted in the complex of residential parts and huge gardens together with orchard and aviary, based on few terraces.
XI
Sakuteiki - first publication about landscaping principles
The oldest and most important Japanese text on the art of gardening, a collection of principles concerning garden design and maintenance, stone arrangement, water courses as well as many philosophical and aesthetic aspects.
IX-XIII
Cloister gardners
The most important element of cloister gardens was viridarium (cloister patio), a garden on square basis (ad quadratum) divided into four parts by paths with a fountain, well or a tree in the crossing point and surrounded by a pillared roofed passages.
Other types of gardens connected with medieval cloisters are vegetables gardens, orchards, herbularius (herbs gardens) and cemetery gardens.
Castle gardens
Hortus conclusus - a small garden closed within walls of a castle,
a flower meadow - bigger castle outside walls, a meeting place for courtiers,
a herbularius and a maze are just some typical features of these gardens.
Prato (pratum commune)
First public city gardens outside city walls were built in XII and XIII century in Italy. Dedicated for the recreational purposes of city residents.
XIII
Alhambra and Generalife
The famous palace and garden complex was built by Arabic emirs in Spain. The biggest part which can be visited at present, came from XIV century. Patio de los Arrayanes, Patio de Deraxa or Patio de los Leones are well known patio in the presidential palace. The small palace Generalife is located on the neighbor hill and was probably a summer residence. It is famous due its beautiful gardens.
XV
Renaissance gardens in Europe
The first garden in new Renaissance style of characteristic layout of geometrical shapes enclosed by pruned boxtrees, appeared in Italy in the middle of XV century. The typical elements of these garden were giardino segreti (or giardino secreto), garden parterre, maze, water arrangements and water tricks (giochi d'aqua) as well as such constructions like terraces, stairs, sculptures and grottos.
The most famous Renaissance gardens, still existing, are: Boboli garden in Florence (1550), Villa d'Este in Tivoli (1551), Villa Lante in Bagnaia (1568) and Sacro Bosco in Bomarzo in Mannerist style (1552).
The gardens in Renaissance style were built also in other countries, e.g. Escorial or Buen Retiro in Spain, Villa of Marquis de Fronteira in Portugal or Heidelberg in Germany.
Botanic gardens
The first botanic gardens were built in Italy in XIV. The garden in Salerno is concerned sometimes as the first one athought it is not a typical botanic garden. At present, the garden in Pisa is assumed to be the oldest on in Europe (1543)
XVI
Mogul gardens in India
Baber, a successor to Timur, after conquering India and established the Great Mogul Empire, he settled down in Agra and started to built gardens in this deserted region. But his favourite garden was Bagh-e Babur in Kabul.
Persian gardens
The Safavid dynasty ruled in Persia in XVI-XVIII in period when many splendid palace and gardens were built, among others: Eram Garden in Shiraz, Chehel Sotoun in Isfahan, Fin Garden in Kashan or Shazdeh Garden in Mahan.
Zen gardens in Japan
The garden in Ryoanji Temple with its simplicity, represents the zenith of the Japanese "dried-up
gardens".
The tea gardens in Japan
The traditional Japanese tea ceremony is inseparably connected with the special type of garden, so called tea garden.
First Baroque gardens
The palace started to occupy the central place in the whole structure of the garden. Saint-Germain-en-Laye in France was one of the first garden in a new style, created at th end of XVI century.
XVII
Taj Mahal in India
The well-known memorial of white marble with artistic stone mosaics (1632). The route to this construction leads through the garden in Mogul style.
Baroque gardens of Andre Le Notre
Andre Le Notre had the biggest input in the development of French Baroque gardens. Vaux-le_Vicomte, Clagny, Marly, Chantilly, Fontainebleau but first of all the garden of Versailles.
XVIII
Yaun Ming Yaun (Old Summer Palace)
The construction of Yuan Ming Yuan, one of the best imperial gardens in China, started at the beginning of XVIII century. It was a complex of palaces and gardens in present-day Beijing and consisted of three gardens Yuan Ming Yuan, Chang Chun Yuan and Wan Chun Yuan. The garden was destroyed in approx. 1860.
The century of Baroque gardens
France: Champs, Sassy, Chenonceaux, Italy: Isola Bella, Caserta, Germany: Herrenhausen, Wilhelmshöhe, Nymphenburg, Sanssouci, Schwetzigen, Austria: Belvedere, Schönbrunn, Mirabel, Hellbrunn, Poland: Wilanów, Nieborów, Spain: La Granja, Portugal: Queluz, Sweden: Drottningholm, Netherlands: Het Loo, Russia: Petrodvorets, Tsarskoye Selo
First landscape gardens
William Kent and Charles Brigdeman were the first ones, who started the transformation from formal gardens to a landscape ones, already in the first part of XVIII century. But the essential contribution to the development of landscape style belongs to Lancelot „Capability” Brown and afterwards to Humphry Repton.
Transformation of previous Baroque gardens into landscape ones
A lot of old gardens, built in previous style, were transformed according to rules of a new style of landscape gardens, sometimes at high costs. Some gardens were even rebuilt a few times.
XIX
Romantic style
A turn to a rich literary program, like artificial ruins, caves hermitages or neo-gothic buildings, was observed in landscape gardens especially at the beginning of XIX century.
Anglo-chinois style
William Chambers introduced elements from East Asia like pagodas and pavilions in Chinese style, creating a substyle, so called anglo-chinois one.
Development of public parks
After winning a competition (1857), Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux have built Central Park in New York, a public park offering a place for the rest, relaxation, sports and meetings in pleasant environment, available for every inhabitant of the city.
Towards diversity
The second part of XIX can be described a mix of different trends, occurring in green areas: the fashion for complicated flower beds, gardenesque style where the emphasis was put on the unique quality of each plant specimen, introduction of plants of foreign origin, development of technique, manifested in constructions of hot-houses from glass and steel.
American lawn of front garden
Frank Scott was a propagator of removing all fences from the front gardens and leaving this area covered by lawn connected to the lawn of other neighbors and in that he set a trend for American front garden for following years, which survived also in XX century.
First complex arrangements of green areas of cities
During XIX century, the urban green areas increased not only in numbers but also in their diversity. At the same time a clear tendency appeared to consciously shape all green areas in the city into consistent green urban systems.
Special gardens
Although existing also previously, the XIX century is characterized of rapid growth of various type of special gardens, like botanical gardens, didactical gardens, zoological gardens, exhibition gardens, etc.
XX
Secession
The style is characterized by asymmetrical and curvilinear layouts, based on mainly floral motifs. An interesting and well-known example is Park Guell in Barcelona created by Antoni Gaudi.
Arts and Crafts
The idea of combining a house with rural landscape by the use of traditional local craft came from England and then spread in other countries. Gertrude Jekyll was the most famous representative of this trend.
Modernism
On the one hand, geometrical axial systems, on the other hand, asymmetric solutions together with contrasting elements. The disappearance of the border between the building and the garden, which penetrate each other.
Increasing role of private home gardens
Such gardens occupied usually on a small area, most often including both a usable and a recreation part.
Allotment garden (community garden)
A small parcel intended for individual, non-commercial gardening. Usually several dozen or hundred such parcel were grouped together on a piece of the land.
First such gardens appeared already at the end of XIX century in Germany, but the huge increase of their number started yet in XX century.
Ecological trend
The Increase of interest in the land rehabilitation and revegetation of degraded disturbed areas, e.g. Emscher Park annbsp;area of approx. 800nbsp;ha in the German Ruhr region.
Time of searching
II part of XX century is a time of searching for new ideas, often connecting nature and art, usage of various, often contrasting, building materials, fusion of old and new styles, eclectic in form and materials (Park La Villette, Citroen Park, Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, projects of Martha Schwartz)