Gardening

While the 12,000 year-old date is the commonly accepted timeline describing plant domestication, there is now evidence from the Ohalo II hunter-gatherer site showing earlier signs of disturbing the soil and cultivation of pre-domesticated crop species.

[8] This evidence pushes early stage plant domestication to 23,000 years ago which aligns with research done by Allaby (2022) showing slight selection pressure of desirable traits in Southwest Asian cereals (einkorn, emmer, barley).

[9] Despite not qualifying as plant domestication, there are many archaeological studies pushing the potential date of hominin selective ecosystem disturbance back up to 125,000 years ago.

[13] This shift from hunting and gathering to increasingly modifying the environment in a way which produces an abundance of edible plant species marks the beginning of gardening.

[20] There are long traditions of gardening within Indigenous societies spanning from the northernmost parts of Canada down to the southernmost tip of Chile and Argentina.

[21][18][22][23] The Arctic and Subarctic societies relied primarily on hunting and fishing due to the harsh climate although they have been known to collectively use at least 311 different plants as foods or medicines.

[28][29][30] Horticulture plays a relatively small role in these northern and southern tundra inhabitants compared with Indigenous societies in grassland and forest ecosystems.

These include the use of fire for ecosystem maintenance and resetting successional sequences, the sowing of wild annuals, the sowing of domesticated annuals (e.g. three sisters, New World crops), creating berry patches and orchards, manipulation of plants to encourage desired traits(e.g. increased nut, fruit, or root production), and landscape modification to encourage plant and animal growth (e.g. complex irrigation, sea gardens, or terraces).

[14][31][32] These modified landscapes as recorded by early American philosophers such as Thoreau, and Emmerson were described as exhibiting pristine beauty.

Some of these include maize, quinoa, common bean, peanut, pumpkin, squash, pepper, tomato, cassava, potato, blueberry, cactus pear, cashew, papaya, pineapple, strawberry, cacao, sunflower, cotton, Pará rubber, and tobacco.

Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings from the New Kingdom (around 1500 BC) provide some of the earliest physical evidence of ornamental horticulture and landscape design; they depict lotus ponds surrounded by symmetrical rows of acacias and palms.

[38] Ancient Roman gardens were laid out with hedges and vines and contained a wide variety of flowers—acanthus, cornflowers, crocus, cyclamen, hyacinth, iris, ivy, lavender, lilies, myrtle, narcissus, poppy, rosemary and violets[39]—as well as statues and sculptures.

At the same time, the gardens in the monasteries were a place to grow flowers and medicinal herbs but they were also a space where the monks could enjoy nature and relax.

Farm workers were provided with cottages that had architectural quality set in a small garden—about 1 acre (0.40 hectares)—where they could grow food and keep pigs and chickens.

Even the early cottage garden flowers typically had their practical use—violets were spread on the floor (for their pleasant scent and keeping out vermin); calendulas and primroses were both attractive and used in cooking.

They were often inspired by paintings of landscapes by Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin, and some were Influenced by the classic Chinese gardens of the East,[47] which had recently been described by European travelers.

These tools include tractors with modern implements, manure spreaders, cultivators, mowers, earth-moving machines, hedge trimmers, strimmer's, wood-chippers, two-wheel tractors, complex irrigation systems, plastic mulch, plastic shelters, seeding trays, indoor grow lights, packaging, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, genetically modified seeds, and many more.

Cloning may result in highly vulnerable plant populations if they do not also reproduce sexually in order to create genetic diversity thus allowing for certain levels of natural selection and hybrid vigor.

[88] Gardeners may grow frustrated if they lack this crucial knowledge before attempting to propagate certain plants such as hard neck garlic (asexual reproduction), which requires a cold dormant period to sprout, or saskatoon berries which have improved germination after being digested by bears through a process called endozoochory.

[94] Some plants such as onions and various herbs may be efficiently started by scattering their seeds on top of soil in a large tray where the seedlings will later be teased apart from each other and replanted in the garden or pots.

[96] For example, a highly and rapidly altered landscape such as modern canola fields in the Americas can be a breeding ground for pests of the Brassicaceae family.

[104] Creating new pesticides in order to manage resistant organisms is an immense expense and is often heavily criticized as an ineffective method of pest control.

[106] Another common method of pest control, used frequently in market gardening, is using insect netting or plastic greenhouse covers.

Garden guns are short-range weapons that can do little harm past 15 to 20 yards (14 to 18 m) and are relatively quiet when fired with snake shot, compared to a standard ammunition.

These guns are especially effective inside of barns and sheds, as the snake shot will not shoot holes in the roof or walls, or more importantly injure livestock with a ricochet.

Common hedge plants are privet, hawthorn, beech, yew, leyland cypress, hemlock, arborvitae, barberry, box, holly, oleander, forsythia and lavender.

[115][116][117] Numerous challenges to these laws, ordinances and regulations have emerged in recent years, with some resulting in legislation protecting a homeowner's right to cultivate native plants or grow vegetables.

[123] Others consider gardening to be a good hedge against supply chain disruptions with increased worries that the public cannot always trust that the grocery store shelves will be fully stocked.

These are used to add decoration or functionality, and may be made from a wide range of materials such as copper, stone, wood, bamboo, stainless steel, clay, stained glass, concrete, or iron.

In Japan, Samurai and Zen monks were often required to build decorative gardens or practice related skills like flower arrangement known as ikebana.