2287) Gardener
Gist
A gardener is a person who gardens: the person is one employed to care for the gardens or grounds of a home, business concern, or other property.
A person whose hobby or job is growing flowers in a garden is called a gardener. If you want homegrown flowers and veggies, get to know a gardener. If you grow vegetables professionally, you're called a farmer, but if you design, tend, or care for a flower garden, you're a gardener.
A person whose hobby or job is growing flowers in a garden is called a gardener. If you want homegrown flowers and veggies, get to know a gardener.
If you grow vegetables professionally, you're called a farmer, but if you design, tend, or care for a flower garden, you're a gardener. Planting anything on a small scale, in your own backyard, also makes you a gardener. The word gardener was a common last name starting in the 13th century, from the Old French jardineor, and the Old North French gardin, "kitchen garden or orchard."
Summary
A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby.
Description
A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the hobbyist in a residential garden, the home-owner supplementing the family food with a small vegetable garden or orchard, to an employee in a plant nursery or the head gardener in a large estate.
Garden design and maintenance
The garden designer is someone who will design the garden, and the gardener is the person who will undertake the work to produce the desired outcome.
Design
The term gardener is also used to describe garden designers and landscape architects, who are involved chiefly in the design of gardens, rather than the practical aspects of horticulture. Garden design is considered to be an art in most cultures, distinguished from gardening, which generally means garden maintenance. Vita Sackville-West, Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson were garden designers as well as gardeners.
Garden design is the creation of a plan for the construction of a garden, in a design process. The product is the garden, and the garden designers attempt to optimize the given general conditions of the soil, location and climate, ecological, and geological conditions and processes to choose the right plants in corresponding conditions. The design can include different themes such as perennial, butterfly, wildlife, Japanese, water, tropical, or shade gardens. In 18th-century Europe, country estates were refashioned by landscape gardeners into formal gardens or landscaped park lands, such as at Versailles, France, or Stowe Gardens, England.
Today, landscape architects and garden designers continue to design both private garden spaces, residential estates and parkland, public parks and parkways to site planning for campuses and corporate office parks. Professional landscape designers are certified by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.
Maintenance
The designer also provides directions and supervision during construction, and the management of establishment and maintenance once the garden has been created. The gardener is the person who has the skill to maintain the garden's design.
The gardener's labor during the year include planting flowers and other plants, weeding, pruning, grafting, deadheading, mixing and preparation of insecticides and other products for pest control, and tending garden compost. Weeds tend to thrive at the expense of the more refined edible or ornamental plants. Gardeners need to control weeds using physical or chemical methods to stop weeds from reaching a mature stage of growth when they could be harmful to domesticated plants. Early activities such as starting young plants from seeds for later transplantation are usually performed in early spring.
Details
Gardening is the laying out and care of a plot of ground devoted partially or wholly to the growing of plants such as flowers, herbs, or vegetables.
Gardening can be considered both as an art, concerned with arranging plants harmoniously in their surroundings, and as a science, encompassing the principles and techniques of plant cultivation. Because plants are often grown in conditions markedly different from those of their natural environment, it is necessary to apply to their cultivation techniques derived from plant physiology, chemistry, and botany, modified by the experience of the planter. The basic principles involved in growing plants are the same in all parts of the world, but the practice naturally needs much adaptation to local conditions.
The nature of gardening
Gardening in its ornamental sense needs a certain level of civilization before it can flourish. Wherever that level has been attained, in all parts of the world and at all periods, people have made efforts to shape their environment into an attractive display. The instinct and even enthusiasm for gardening thus appear to arise from some primitive response to nature, engendering a wish to produce growth and harmony in a creative partnership with it.
It is possible to be merely an admiring spectator of gardens. However, most people who cultivate a domestic plot also derive satisfaction from involvement in the processes of tending plants. They find that the necessary attention to the seasonal changes, and to the myriad small “events” in any shrubbery or herbaceous border, improves their understanding and appreciation of gardens in general.
A phenomenal upsurge of interest in gardening began in Western countries after World War II. A lawn with flower beds and perhaps a vegetable patch has become a sought-after advantage to home ownership. The increased interest produced an unprecedented expansion of business among horticultural suppliers, nurseries, garden centres, and seedsmen. Books, journals, and newspaper columns on garden practice have found an eager readership, while television and radio programs on the subject have achieved a dedicated following.
Several reasons for this expansion suggest themselves. Increased leisure in the industrial nations gives more people the opportunity to enjoy this relaxing pursuit. The increased public appetite for self-sufficiency in basic skills also encourages people to take up the spade. In the kitchen, the homegrown potato or ear of sweet corn rewards the gardener with a sense of achievement, as well as with flavour superior to that of store-bought produce. An increased awareness of threats to the natural environment and the drabness of many inner cities stir some people to cultivate the greenery and colour around their own doorsteps. The bustle of 20th-century life leads more individuals to rediscover the age-old tranquillity of gardens.
The varied appeal of gardening
The attractions of gardening are many and various and, to a degree perhaps unique among the arts and crafts, may be experienced by any age group and at all levels of ambition. At its most elemental, but not least valuable, the gardening experience begins with the child’s wonder that a packet of seeds will produce a charming festival of colour. At the adult level, it can be as simple as helping to raise a good and edible carrot, and it can give rise to almost parental pride. At higher levels of appreciation, it involves an understanding of the complexity of the gardening process, equivalent to a chess game with nature, because the variables are so many.
The gardening experience may involve visiting some of the world’s great gardens at different seasons to see the relation of individual groups of plants, trees, and shrubs to the whole design; to study the positioning of plants in terms of their colour, texture, and weight of leaf or blossom; and to appreciate the use of special features such as ponds or watercourses, pavilions, or rockeries. Garden visiting on an international scale provides an opportunity to understand the broad cultural influences, as well as the variations in climate and soil, that have resulted in so many different approaches to garden making.
The appeal of gardening is thus multifaceted and wide in range. The garden is often the only place where someone without special training can exercise creative impulses as designer, artist, technician, and scientific observer. In addition, many find it a relaxing and therapeutic pursuit. It is not surprising that the garden, accorded respect as a part of nature and a place of contemplation, holds a special place in the spiritual life of many.
Practical and spiritual aspects of gardening are shown in an impressive body of literature. In Western countries manuals of instruction date to classical Greece and Rome. Images of plants and gardens are profuse in the works of the major poets, from Virgil to Shakespeare, and on to some of the moderns.
Another of gardening’s attractions is that up to a certain level it is a simple craft to learn. The beginner can produce pleasing results without the exacting studies and practice required by, for example, painting or music. Gardens are also forgiving to the inexperienced to a certain degree. Nature’s exuberance will cover up minor errors or short periods of neglect, so gardening is an art practiced in a relatively nonjudgmental atmosphere. While tolerant in many respects, nature does, however, present firm reminders that all gardening takes place within a framework of natural law; and one important aspect of the study of the craft is to learn which of these primal rules are imperatives and which may be stretched.
Control and cooperation
Large areas of gardening development and mastery have concentrated on persuading plants to achieve what they would not have done if left in the wild and therefore “natural” state. Gardens at all times have been created through a good deal of control and what might be called interference. The gardener attends to a number of basic processes: combating weeds and pests; using space to allay the competition between plants; attending to feeding, watering, and pruning; and conditioning the soil. Above this fundamental level, the gardener assesses and accommodates the unique complex of temperature, wind, rainfall, sunlight, and shade found within his own garden boundaries. A major part of the fascination of gardening is that in problems and potential no one garden is quite like another; and it is in finding the most imaginative solutions to challenges that the gardener demonstrates artistry and finds the subtler levels of satisfaction.
Different aesthetics require different balances between controlling nature and cooperating with its requirements. The degree of control depends on the gardener’s objective, the theme and identity he is aiming to create. For example, the English wild woodland style of gardening in the mid-19th century dispensed with controls after planting, and any interference, such as pruning, would have been misplaced. At the other extreme is the Japanese dry-landscape garden, beautifully composed of rock and raked pebbles. The artistic control in this type of garden is so firm and refined that the intrusion of a single “natural” weed would spoil the effect.
Choice of plants
The need for cooperation with nature is probably most felt by the amateur gardener in choosing the plants he wants to grow. The range of plants available to the modern gardener is remarkably rich, and new varieties are constantly being offered by nurseries. Most of the shrubs and flowers used in the Western world are descendants of plants imported from other countries. Because they are nonnative, they present the gardener with some of his most interesting problems but also with the possibility of an enhanced display. Plants that originated in subtropical regions, for example, are naturally more sensitive to frost. Some, like rhododendrons or azaleas, originated in an acid soil, mainly composed of leaf mold. Consequently, they will not thrive in a chalky or an alkaline soil. Plant breeding continues to improve the adaptability of such exotic plants, but the more closely the new habitat resembles the original, the better the plant will flourish. Manuals offer solutions to most such problems, and the true gardener will always enjoy finding his own. In such experiments, he may best experience his work as part of the historical tradition of gardening.
Types of gardens
The domestic garden can assume almost any identity the owner wishes within the limits of climate, materials, and means. The size of the plot is one of the main factors, deciding not only the scope but also the kind of display and usage. Limits on space near urban centres, as well as the wish to spend less time on upkeep, have tended to make modern gardens ever smaller. Paradoxically, this happens at a time when the variety of plants and hybrids has never been wider. The wise small gardener avoids the temptations of this banquet. Some of the most attractive miniature schemes, such as those seen in Japan or in some Western patio gardens, are effectively based on an austere simplicity of design and content, with a handful of plants given room to find their proper identities.
In the medium- to large-sized garden, the tradition generally continues of dividing the area to serve various purposes: a main ornamental section to enhance the residence and provide vistas; walkways and seating areas for recreation; a vegetable plot; a children’s play area; and features to catch the eye here and there. Because most gardens are mixed, the resulting style is a matter of emphasis rather than exclusive concentration on one aspect. It may be useful to review briefly the main garden types.
Flower gardens
Though flower gardens in different countries may vary in the types of plants that are grown, the basic planning and principles are nearly the same, whether the gardens are formal or informal. Trees and shrubs are the mainstay of a well-designed flower garden. These permanent features are usually planned first, and the spaces for herbaceous plants, annuals, and bulbs are arranged around them. The range of flowering trees and shrubs is enormous. It is important, however, that such plants be appropriate to the areas they will occupy when mature. Thus it is of little use to plant a forest tree that will grow 100 feet (30 metres) high and 50 feet across in a small suburban front garden 30 feet square, but a narrow flowering cherry or redbud tree would be quite suitable.
Blending and contrast of colour as well as of forms are important aspects to consider in planning a garden. The older type of herbaceous border was designed to give a maximum display of colour in summer, but many gardeners now prefer to have flowers during the early spring as well, at the expense of some bare patches later. This is often done by planting early-flowering bulbs in groups toward the front. Mixed borders of flowering shrubs combined with herbaceous plants are also popular and do not require quite so much maintenance as the completely herbaceous border.
Groups of half-hardy annuals, which can withstand low night temperatures, may be planted at the end of spring to fill gaps left by the spring-flowering bulbs. The perpetual-flowering roses and some of the larger shrub roses look good toward the back of such a border, but the hybrid tea roses and the floribunda and polyantha roses are usually grown in separate rose beds or in a rose garden by themselves.
Woodland gardens
The informal woodland garden is the natural descendant of the shrubby “wilderness” of earlier times. The essence of the woodland garden is informality and naturalness. Paths curve rather than run straight and are of mulch or grass rather than pavement. Trees are thinned to allow enough light, particularly in the glades, but irregular groups may be left, and any mature tree of character can be a focal point. Plants are chosen largely from those that are woodlanders in their native countries: rhododendron, magnolia, pieris, and maple among the trees and shrubs; lily, daffodil, and snowdrop among the bulbs; primrose, hellebore, St.-John’s-wort, epimedium, and many others among the herbs.
Rock gardens
Rock gardens are designed to look as if they are a natural part of a rocky hillside or slope. If rocks are added, they are generally laid on their larger edges, as in natural strata. A few large boulders usually look better than a number of small rocks. In a well-designed rock garden, rocks are arranged so that there are various exposures for sun-tolerant plants such as rockroses and for shade-tolerant plants such as primulas, which often do better in a cool, north-facing aspect. Many smaller perennial plants are available for filling spaces in vertical cracks among the rock faces.
The main rocks from which rock gardens are constructed are sandstone and limestone. Sandstone, less irregular and pitted generally, looks more restful and natural, but certain plants, notably most of the dianthuses, do best in limestone. Granite is generally regarded as too hard and unsuitable for the rock garden because it weathers very slowly.
Water gardens
The water garden represents one of the oldest forms of gardening. Egyptian records and pictures of cultivated water lilies date as far back as 2000 bce. The Japanese have also made water gardens to their own particular and beautiful patterns for many centuries. Many have an ornamental lantern of stone in the centre or perhaps a flat trellis roof of wisteria extending over the water. In Europe and North America, water gardens range from formal pools with rectangular or circular outline, sometimes with fountains in the centre and often without plants or with just one or two water lilies (Nymphaea), to informal pools of irregular outline planted with water lilies and other water plants and surrounded by boggy or damp soil where moisture-tolerant plants can be grown. The pool must contain suitable oxygenating plants to keep the water clear and support any introduced fish. Most water plants, including even the large water lilies, do well in still water two to five feet deep. Temperate water lilies flower all day, but many of the tropical and subtropical ones open their flowers only in the evening.
In temperate countries water gardens also can be made under glass, and the pools can be kept heated. In such cases, more tropical plants, such as the great Victoria amazonica (V. regia) or the lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), can be grown together with papyrus reeds at the edge. The range of moisture-loving plants for damp places at the edge of the pool is great and includes many beautiful plants such as the candelabra primulas, calthas, irises, and osmunda ferns.
Herb and vegetable gardens
Most of the medieval gardens and the first botanical gardens were largely herb gardens containing plants used for medicinal purposes or herbs such as thyme, parsley, rosemary, fennel, marjoram, and dill for savouring foods. The term herb garden is usually used now to denote a garden of herbs used for cooking, and the medicinal aspect is rarely considered. Herb gardens need a sunny position, because the majority of the plants grown are native to warm, dry regions.
The vegetable garden also requires an open and sunny location. Good cultivation and preparation of the ground are important for successful vegetable growing, and it is also desirable to practice a rotation of crops as in farming. The usual period of rotation for vegetables is three years; this also helps to prevent the carryover from season to season of certain pests and diseases.
The old French potager, the prized vegetable garden, was grown to be decorative as well as useful; the short rows with little hedges around and the high standard of cultivation represent a model of the art of vegetable growing. The elaborate parterre vegetable garden at the Château de Villandry is perhaps the finest example in Europe of a decorative vegetable garden.
Specialty gardens:
Roof gardens
The modern tendency in architecture for flat roofs has made possible the development of attractive roof gardens in urban areas above private houses and commercial buildings. These gardens follow the same principles as others except that the depth of soil is less, to keep the weight on the rooftop low, and therefore the size of plants is limited. The plants are generally set in tubs or other containers, but elaborate roof gardens have been made with small pools and beds. Beds of flowering plants are suitable, among which may be stood tubs of specimen plants to produce a desired effect.
Scented gardens
Scent is one of the qualities that many people appreciate highly in gardens. Scented gardens, in which scent from leaves or flowers is the main criterion for inclusion of a plant, have been established, especially for the benefit of blind people. Some plants release a strong scent in full sunlight, and many must be bruised or rubbed to yield their fragrance. These are usually grown in raised beds within easy reach of visitors.
Contents of gardens:
Permanent elements
The more or less permanent plants available for any garden plan are various grasses for lawns, other ground-cover plants, shrubs, climbers, and trees. More transitory and therefore in need of continued attention are the herbaceous plants, such as the short-lived annuals and biennials, and the perennials and bulbous plants, which resume growth each year.
Lawns and ground covers
Areas of lawn, or turf, provide the green expanse that links all other garden plantings together. The main grasses used in cool areas for fine-textured lawns are fescues (Festuca species), bluegrasses (Poa species), and bent grasses (Agrostis species), often in mixtures. A rougher lawn mixture may contain ryegrass (Lolium species). In drier and subtropical regions, Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) is frequently used, but it does not make nearly as fine a lawn as those seen in temperate regions of higher rainfall.
Ground covers are perennial plants used as grass substitutes in regions where grasses do poorly, or they are sometimes combined with grassy areas to produce a desired design. The deep greens, bronzes, and other colours that ground-cover plants can provide offer pleasing contrasts to the green of a turf. Ground covers, however, are not so durable as lawns and do not sustain themselves as well under foot traffic and other activities. Among the better known plants used as ground covers are Japanese spurge (Pachysandra terminalis), common periwinkle (Vinca minor), lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis), ajuga, or bugleweed (Ajuga reptans), many stonecrops (Sedum species), dichondra (Dichondra repens), and many ivies (Hedera species).
Shrubs and vines (climbers)
Smaller woody plants, such as shrubs and bushes, have several stems arising from the base. These plants attain heights up to about 20 feet (6 metres). They often form the largest part of modern gardens, because their cultivation requires less labour than that of herbaceous plants, and some flowering shrubs have extended blooming periods. Among the popular garden shrubs are lilac (Syringa vulgaris), privet (Ligustrum species), spirea (Spiraea species), honeysuckle (Lonicera species), forsythia (Forsythia species), mock orange (Philadelphus species), and hydrangea (Hydrangea species).
Climbers are often useful in softening the sharp lines of buildings, fences, and other structures. They can provide shade as an awning or cover on an arbour or garden house. Some species are also useful as ground covers on steep slopes and terraces. Among the many woody perennial climbers for the garden are the ivies, trumpet creeper (Bignonia, or Campsis, radicans), clematis (Clematis species), wisteria (Wisteria sinensis), climbing roses, annual herbaceous vines such as morning glory (Ipomoea species), and ornamental gourds, the last of which can provide rapid but temporary coverage of unsightly objects.
Trees
Trees are the most permanent features of a garden plan. The range of tree sizes, shapes, and colours is vast enough to suit almost any gardening scheme, from shrubby dwarf trees to giant shade trees, from slow to rapid growers, from all tones of green to bronzes, reds, yellows, and purples. A balance between evergreen trees, such as pines and spruces, and deciduous trees, such as oaks, maples, and beeches, can provide protection and visual interest throughout the year.
Transitory elements:
Herbaceous plants
Herbaceous plants, which die down annually and have no woody stem aboveground, are readily divided into three categories, as mentioned earlier: (1) Annuals, plants that complete their life cycle in one year, are usually grown from seed sown in the spring either in the place they are to flower or in separate containers, from which they are subsequently moved into their final position. Annuals flower in summer and die down in winter after setting seed. Many brilliantly coloured ornamental plants as well as many weeds belong in this category. Examples of annuals are petunia and lobelia. (2) Biennials are plants sown from seed one year, generally during the summer. They flower the second season and then die. Examples are wallflower and sweet william. (3) Herbaceous perennials are those that die down to the ground each year but whose roots remain alive and send up new top growth each year. They are an important group in horticulture, whether grown as individual plants or in the assembly of the herbaceous border. Because they flower each year, they help to create the structure of the garden’s appearance, so their placement must be considered carefully. Examples are delphinium and lupine.
Bulbous plants
For horticultural purposes, bulbous plants are defined to include those plants that have true bulbs (such as the daffodil), those with corms (such as the crocus), and a few that have tubers or rhizomes (such as the dahlia or iris). A bulb is defined as a modified shoot with a disklike basal plate and above it a number of fleshy scales that take the place of leaves and contain foods such as starch, sugar, and some proteins. Each year a new stem arises from the centre. A corm consists of the swollen base of a stem, generally rounded or flattened at the top and covered with a membranous tunic in which reserve food materials are stored. A tuber or rhizome is not the base of the stem but rather a swollen part of an underground stem; it is often knobbly. All such plants have evolved in places where they can survive in a semidormant state over long unfavourable seasons, either cold mountain winters or long droughty summers.
Additional Information
Gardening is the process of growing plants for their vegetables, fruits, flowers, herbs, and appearances within a designated space. Gardens fulfill a wide assortment of purposes, notably the production of aesthetically pleasing areas, medicines, cosmetics, dyes, foods, poisons, wildlife habitats, and saleable goods (see market gardening). People often partake in gardening for its therapeutic, health, educational, cultural, philosophical, environmental, and religious benefits.
Gardening varies in scale from the 800 hectare Versailles gardens down to container gardens grown inside. Gardens take many forms, some only contain one type of plant while others involve a complex assortment of plants with no particular order.
Gardening can be difficult to differentiate from farming. They are most easily differentiated based on their primary objectives. Farming prioritizes saleable goods and may include livestock production whereas gardening often prioritizes aesthetics and leisure. As it pertains to food production, gardening generally happens on a much smaller scale with the intent of personal or community consumption. It is important to note that there are cultures which do not differentiate between farming and gardening. This is primarily because subsistence agriculture has been the main method of farming throughout its 12,000 year history and is virtually indistinguishable from gardening.
