Roman Gardens

[Primvs Pavlvs]

The wife and I are planning on landscaping our backyard to resemble a Roman garden. I have been searching for information online, but only come up with modern Rome, or Italian gardens. Are there any books out there? Anyone else done this?

Thanks,

[Ioannis]

I think you'll find the following useful...

Dickson, C. "Macroscopic Fossils of Garden Plants from British Roman and Medieval Deposits" PACT 42 (1994) 47.

Jashemski, Wilhelmina F. "Roman Gardens in Tunisia: Preliminary Excavations in the House of Bacchus and Ariadne and in the East Temple at Thuburbo Maius, with an appendix by J.E. Foss, R.J. Lewis, M.E. Timpson, and S.Y. Lee: Soils of Thuburbo Maius." AJA 99.4 (1995) 559.

Henderson, John "Columella's Living Hedge: the Roman Gardening Book" JRS 92 (2002) 110-133.

[sulla felix]

This is good too:

http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Roman-Gar ... 0750917253

Also look out for work by Elizabeth McDougal (I think) - Harvard University Press. I recall that she produced a book on Roman Villa gardens.

Also Jashmeski produced a Roman Gardens book I believe.

[jvrjenivs]

In the Museumpark Orientalis, one of the houses has a garden based on a Pompeii one.

Unfortunately I've only an 3-years old picture of it, now, so there it is just after opening. Nowadays there are much more plants etc, but here it is.

I've to work next Sunday, so if I don't forget I'll take some more pictures, then.

[caiusbeerquitius]

This is a very good book:

Andreae, B., Am Birnbaum – Gärten und Parks im antiken Rom, Mainz, 1996.

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Thank you very much!

[Narukami]

The wife and I are planning on landscaping our backyard to resemble a Roman garden. I have been searching for information online, but only come up with modern Rome, or Italian gardens. Are there any books out there? Anyone else done this?

Thanks,

Interesting...

Watching the episode of Rome where Cicero meets his end in the garden of his country estate, my wife said "We should do something like that in our back yard."

I understood her to mean constructing a Roman garden not a political assassination.

So we picked up the book by Linda Farrar (recommended above by Sulla). It is a very detailed book, not a lot of photos but extensive drawings of garden features and a couple of basic layouts. There is also a brief but interesting history of gardens and gardening in the ancient world and how they influenced the Romans. As she points out, gardens have seldom been considered when ancient sites are excavated so much has been lost.

Our "Roman" garden will depend in large part to the critical factors of Time and Money, neither of which seem to be abundant at the moment, so this may be a long term project marked by "fits & starts" as much as by steady progress.

However...

Do keep us posted on your Roman Garden adventure -- you might consider documenting it for use not only by fellow members of our Forum but by the general gardening public who are always on the look out for good ideas.

Good luck!



Narukami

[Restitvtvs]

The Villa of Livia frescos, in Primaporta, Italia, show an example of one type of Roman garden. Hope this helps.

[Uwe Bahr]

Avete omnes,

I can recommend the homepage of a lovely couple from England who also romanized their garden with selfmade mosaic and temple bird-table - see and enjoy:

[url:2vun9r7d]http://www.pyrrha.demon.co.uk/indexp.html[/url]

After painting some frescoes on my old garage I am still struggling myself with a more roman garden.

Greets - Uwe

[Senovara]

The wife and I are planning on landscaping our backyard to resemble a Roman garden.

Wow! please keep us updated and take some pictures. We'd all love to see it.