joke - Melanie in the garden picture Melanie Caughey: Garden Readings


"For above all, a garden should furnish food for the imagination, and these fantastic forms are indeed made of such stuff as dreams."
- pg. 80, Medieval Gardens, by Frank Crisp (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1966) First published in 1924.


Various garden book readings


My parents had many gardens, in different places and at different homes, one with a lovely garden arbor seat built by my father and grandfather. That yard was very long; I really liked the upright tires painted white that formed a casual fence into the garden. But my ideal of a garden was formed when I was maybe 4 years old, from trips to my Great-Aunt Velma Woodruff's garden. She had many beautiful flowers, enjoyed in an atmosphere of family camaraderie on strolls about the yard but also had quite a collection of lawn ornaments, which to my youthful eyes brought the magic and charm of an amusement park or state fair right into the back yard. I was smitten with the beauty of her yard, and have appreciated lawn ornaments ever since (despite their time frame!) And, of course, reading has long been a favorite of mine, so garden books are a natural interest.

"I know that to mine own soil, light, zone, and energy level I must be true. ... I don't care too much about a rose's accomplishments as long as it is healthy. I don't plant delicate plants near the dog's path's or expect an astilbe to bloom in draught. Yes, I have learned the limitations and possibilities of my little city plot" - Sigrid Arnott, in The Gardener's Bedside Reader, Kari Cornell, Editor

"In March and in April, from morning to night, in sowing and setting, good gardeners delight." - Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points, 1573

"You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt" - Author Unknown

"Cross diamonds in the paper I do frame
And in the ground I can draw the same
Four separate quarters fit for to be drawn
With herb or box for to set flowers there in"
-Blake, The Complete Gardeners Practice


Medieval plant list IN PROGRESS

Sometime soon I will post a copy of the Excel file or a pdf of this, although I am still a long way from finishing this list prepared from hobby library-reading on lunch hours. . plant list rough draft . . AND be sure to send me a note on the feedback form below to let me know about any corrections you wish to note.)

Medieval Plant List in progress, top of page one



Here is a list of some of the background reference materials I have read so far.

2800BC - Shennong, "Shennong's Materia Medica" and Ming Dynasty work by Li Shizhen, "Compendium of Materia Medica", not located yet

812 - Emperor Charlemagne, "Capitulare de Villis vel Curtis Imperiali Caroli Magni"

816 - Plan Prepared for the St. Gall Monastery

840 - Walafrid Strabo, "Hortulus"

    1143 - Hildegard of Bingen, "Physica"

      1200 - Alexander Neckam, "De Naturis Rerum"

      1215 - Ibn al-Baitar 1215AD, wrote a translation of Pedacius Dioscorides (60AD), "De Materia Medica"

      1280 - Henry the Poet 1280-1300, wrote about the hundred-or-so plants in his four-walled garden

        1350 - Jon Gardener, "The Feate of Gardening"

        1360 - Friar Henry Daniel, 1280-1373, noted writer including an Herbal, rosemary cultivation guide, and medical texts, writes about garden plants

        1393 - Le Menagier de Paris, "A Treatise on Moral and Domestic Economy by a Citizen of Paris"

          1485 - Unicorn Tapestries, woven between 1485-1500, have realistic images of a number of recognizable plants

          1492 - Giovanni Cademosto of Lodi, "Tacuinum sanitatis"

            1525 - Thomas Frommond, Carshalton, Surrey, England, plant list

            1577 - Thomas Hyll, "The Gardeners Labyrinth,"

            1580 - Thomas Tusser, "Five Hundred Points of Husbandry"

              1614 - Gervase Markham, "Cheap and Good Husbandry"

              1620 - "City of London Gardens, 1500-1620"


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Warning. This is just a hobby interest; as I do NOT have any horticulturist training do not rely on anything here.