[Herbalist] Re: Tussie-Mussies- Poesys, etc.

[Tara Sersen Boroson]

 >>I was just travelling, visiting cities.  City people buy flowers
 >>(and vegetables). I have yard enough to grow my own plants. But if I
lived
 >>
 > in a rural area, I wouldn't bother with growing some of the things I do,
 > because I could gather them along country roads.  In sparsely populated
 > early Medieval Europe, you gathered flowers and herbs on the roadside, no
 > need to plant them.  What's the logic of gardens?  Did they develop
because
 > people wanted to grow nonlocal plants?
 >
 >>Agnes
 >
 > The Arabs and other Eastern cultures thought a lot of gardens very
early on.
 > The garden was laid out to resemble Paradise, with fountains or a
symbolic
 > 'tree of life' in the center, with paths leading in toward that
feature.  I
 > would venture to guess that European gardens developed as a result of
 > contact with the Middle East (amazing what civilizing influences were
 > brought back from a war against 'filthy infidels'!)
 > Christianna


I would argue that they came from convenience - rather than walk all the
way out to where the plant was growing, why not dig it up and plant it
outside your door?  Especially for food plants, as opposed to flowers or
herbs; And, if you were gardening for food, why not also put that nifty
herb that you're always hunting for in your garden too?  Also, it's a
logical small scale development from agriculture.

-Magdalena