Why should
garden design flourish in the British Isles?
Garden-making and garden-visiting are passionate interests amongst the
inhabitants of these isles. But why? There are a number of reasons:
- The climate has few extremes of heat and cold. It is said to
comprise a long spring and a long autumn, with but a week of winter
and one of summer. This is the converse of countries, like Canada,
which have very short periods of spring and autumn. Our maritime
climate has two consequences. A wide range of plants can be grown and
they come to their best over a very extended period. Garden owners
have reason to be out all through the year. There are few times when
it is too cold and one must normally be active in order to keep
warm.
- The need to live in walled towns disappeared from these
islands at an earlier period then in continental Europe. This happened
because the islands' geography favoured political integration and gave
protection from outside invasion. Walled towns never had much land for
gardens but the 'suburban sprawl' which characterises so much of
Britain is favourable to garden making.
- The British Isles enjoyed an age of prosperity extending,
with interruptions, from the Middle Ages until modern times. This has
allowed a wealth of of luxurious dwellings, whose inhabitants had the
means to create fine gardens.
- The traditional belief that 'my home is my castle' favours
garden-making.
But what is Britain? It is an awkward name for a group of islands in
North West Europe. The Oxford English Dictionary explains the term as
follows:
The Old English name was Breoton, Bryten, Breten, also Breoton-lond…
After the Old English period, [Britain] was for long used only as a
historical term; but in 1604 James was proclaimed 'King of Great Britain';
and this name was adopted for the United Kingdom at the Union in 1707.
Irish, Scots and Welsh nationalists associate the term with English
imperialism, but the British were people who lived in these islands before
the arrival of Angles ('English'.), Saxons and Jutes.
