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an enormous amount of labour to keep all the hedges, paths and gardens tidy, so they tended to become a feature of parks or country mansions.

Herbs have both culinary and medicinal uses as well as certain mystical qualities and their history can be put alongside the history of gardens themselves. The first settlements were usually circular with gardens next to the dwellings. Herbs were grown for their strong scents and flavours and also for their healing and soothing properties.

Many varieties were kept alive during the Dark Ages in the monasteries; and some orders such as the Benedictines, being vegetarians, concentrated on developing new varieties.

The use of decorative gardening and herbs increased as there became fewer inwardly-focused societies. Knot gardens often had herbs as part of the plant flora and the physic gardens were entirely devoted to their growing. There are few physic gardens remaining, the most well-known being the Chelsea Physic Garden in London.

Herbs are still grown as collections because of their use in cooking, because of their past, and because many have striking foliage and flowers which can be made into a beautiful and useful display.

Bedding plants became a dominant feature during the Victorian era, mostly due to plant collectors bringing in new and wonderful plants which were hybridised and bred. Also, many bedding plants were strikingly beautiful and easy to grow. Although most new varieties were half-hardy or tender, they could be over-wintered in the new and developing greenhouses.

Victorian gardeners concentrated on colour schemes. Ornaments which were a central theme of a garden (such as urns, rustic pillars and bowls) were filled to overflowing with flowers and geometric patterns.

Victorian gardening was all about display and outdoing the neigh-bours, and this strong competitive feature led to the rapid expansion of garden designs, and various themes being tried and tested.

The Victorians are remembered in terms of gardening for their ob-session with colour, detail, their crusades across the globe to find exotic plants, and their genius for invention. Over a period of 80 years or so they transformed the world of gardening and many of their influences remain today.

Cottage gardens have few rules, and take much of their appearance from the personality of their owner. Cottage gardens developed in ways different from urban gardens, largely because in rural areas the garden still needed to provide much of the householder's needs in terms of vegetables and herbs, as well as fruit, beehives, and perhaps animals such as chickens or a goat.

Today the emphasis is not so much on the provision of food but on colour, contrast and complementing the house and setting.

Learn more about this author, Sammy Stein.
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