P a s t   P l a n t i n g s

Chapter one

A Sword and Spade start

The Roman conquerors, of the 1^st century A.D., initially brought gardening to Britain. Excelling in both military and horticultural prowess they held, metaphorically, the sword in one hand and the spade in the other.

Prior to their arrival we have no evidence of gardens, in any creative, artistic sense, existing here. The growing of vegetables, in plots, to supplement diet seems to have been practised, but would be a utilitarian practise and not aesthetic one.

No doubt people would have experienced pleasure and been artistically creative whilst growing their vegetables, but those would not be the primary motivation. Basic needs have to be looked after first. The utilitarian precedes the aesthetic: Food comes before flowers!

For example, in Britain, as elsewhere, during Mesolithic times, according to archaeologists, the practise of pre-farming began. People cleared land to create open spaces, thereby attracting wild animals to graze in those clearings. This gave those people potential food supplies in the chosen vicinities and was primarily a utilitarian practise. Today gardeners attract wild birds by hanging up feeders for a primarily aesthetic reason: The pleasure of watching the birds.

Pre-Roman people, in Britain, would not, of course, need gardens as places to reconnect with nature, unlike civilizations’ city dwellers.

The urbanized Romans, on the other hand, are a good example of people who did need to reconnect with nature. Gardens were a Roman antidote to the pressures of their civilization and a more positive one than the escapism of “bread and circuses.”

Those who could afford it owned country villas with large gardens.

Whilst in cities there were small courtyard gardens decorated with fountains.

The Romans gardened in Britain as elsewhere in their empire. Reminders, perhaps, of home and beauty amongst, to them, mostly inferior peoples.

A whole industry and lifestyle, centred on gardens, existed amongst the Romans. They had workshops for making pots, statues and other artefacts for garden adornment. Nursery gardens existed. Plant hunters avidly collected exotic species from all over their far-flung empire and replanted them all over their far-flung empire.

• The xyztus.
• The ambulation
• The gestation

***

In the early 1960tys evidence of a huge Roman garden was found with the discovery of Fishbourne Roman villa (called a palace) in Surrey. It has been partly reconstructed.

There is a formal garden, corresponding to the ambulation, consisting of low box hedges, symmetrically planned, and split by gravelled walks. Small niches punctuate those hedges, used, most likely, for urns, seats or statues.

Further away a landscaped green space, equivalent to the gestation, leads down to water.

A small kitchen garden, common in Roman Britain, planted with fruit and vegetables also exists.

Fishbourne is the most famous Roman garden sight but others do exist, such as Frocester Court in Gloucester.

Many new plants were introduced by the Romans, to Britain. These included crocuses and pansies, roses, the sweet chestnut tree, leeks, lettuce, cucumber, cabbage and onions.

Topiary was popular with them. In fact they were masters at it: Shaping nature to their will and rule as they had with people.  The natives, some of whom would be gainfully employed as slave labour for the gardens, were, you might imagine, suitably impressed by Roman horticultural sophistication.

It is an interesting fact that the most common statue found in Roman gardens, throughout their empire, is that of the Goddess Venus. She was their Deity of beauty, love and fertility. A Goddess with such fair attributes would certainly be a precious asset in horticultural terms. The divine link could also put a case for a sacred sight ancestor to gardens, as hypothesized earlier.

Speculations aside, gardens, as said, were very popular in Roman Britain. It would be many centuries before they would begin to be that way again.

Our term “horticulture” comes from hortus and cultara –the Roman words for garden and to cultivate. Indeed it’s no exaggeration to call the Roman language Latin a gardening language. At least, that is, as far as official plant nomenclature is concerned.

The Romans certainly left their mark on our gardening culture.

Galava

Just as a supplementary point of interest, it is worth mentioning that about a quarter of a mile from our garden centre at Ambleside, on the north shore of Lake Windermere, are the foundations of a Roman fort, known as Galava.

By Robert Armitage BA