gardens

gardens
Two strands of landscape management coalesce in ancient Mediterranean garden culture: the intensification of agricultural production in fertile places where a high input of labour can achieve very high yield per unit area; and the local improvement of the amenity of the natural environment for human activities of all kinds, like building a house but relying much more on what nature provides. Both, above all else, depend on use of water, and are inextricably linked.

Culturally, the main traditions (including the amenity of plants and trees in Minoan art) all go back to the gardens of the Fertile Crescent. The Persian combination of preserve and pleasure known as paradeisos has a special place. Early Greek intensive horticulture created places whose amenity, for abundance of shade or the presence of water, was esteemed (already in Homer, esp. Odyssey 7. 112...

[The entire page is 518 words long]

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