Smart Cookies

Ultimately, any gardener starts looking to buy some garden fork made in the UK or alternatively checking out those Bulldog lawn rakes — but it’s worth noting, it’s taken centuries to reach this level. Tribes grew gardens long before anyone dreamed up the lawn trimmer or the trowel. The activity we know as a well-loved hobby actually began before the rise of Ancient Egypt and the pyramids.

In Egypt gardeners were guided by a mix of pleasure, spirituality, and practical reasons. Usually surrounded by walls of stone, fertile grounds were tended to produce flowers, fruit and nut bearing trees, grapes, vegetables, and sometimes pools of fish. Granted the majority was for food but they also nurtured some plants in the name of their deities. Priests also looked after other herbs on the surrounding land.

They were hardly the only tribe to produce early plantations. The list also includes the Persians, the Babylonians, not to mention the Assyrians, and they often incorporated buildings of noteworthy dimensions into gardens. The Romans were another nation who went in for tranquil gardens, but the Greeks were a different story. Food alone flourished in their farmland. While we grant you they had no access to lawn rakes or forks, these civilizations did employ a number of simplistic tools and garden aids which were the prototypes of the spades and hoes gardeners rely on today. They were made of stone in the earlier years, but were made out of iron, copper, and bronze as time passed.

Progress was abruptly halted under the pressure of the Dark Ages. Gardening suffered, but even then, the clergy kept everything that had been learned alive. Gradually we went back to cultivating flower gardens for pleasure. This movement advanced throughout the 16th and 17th century, at which point gardens became increasingly formal and precise. Many superb examples can be found as knot gardens and hedge mazes, created from complex patterns and textures. Such rules aren’t still the be-all and end-all, and as such there’s honestly nothing to fret about — enjoy yourself, and don’t be embarrassed when it comes to trying to find out how to get rid of some troublesome garden fork deformity or perusing some garden fork reviews. Rather than abiding by these guidelines which had been studiously observed for hundreds of years, “Capability” Brown and those like him innovated a remarkable mix of instinct and structure by bringing together modern decorative pieces along the lines of columns with a natural looking design. Granted, the situation has evolved as time rolls on, but gardens are still tended for the same reasons as our forebears’. Regardless, they’re always among the most beautiful places on earth.