Gardening
Gardening is one of the oldest of the arts./The Chinese with their deep sensitivense to beauty/laid the foundations for a form of garden art/which was later to have great influences upon other lands./
The Greeks gave to the world a new concept of gardening./Their homes were decorated with flowers,/but it was in their civic design that they most skillfully applied their garden art./Their temples were surrounded by rows of trees,/and trees lined the important streets and market places in their principal cities./The Romans acquired much of the knowledge and skill in garden craft from Greeks./In the second century AD the Romans began to build gardens of great scale,/inspired by the vast palace gardens they had conquered./They brought water from great distances to supply the ornamental fountains/which decorated their villa gardens./Later these great villas were to inspire the Italian garden architects to follow the Roman style. |