Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The wall was a protection from weather and wildlife and the food for the
county house was grown within the four walls. Victorian walled gardens had
their own staff and the head gardener was one of the most important people
on the estate.
During the most part of the 20th century Victorian walled gardens fell
to ruin. This was partly because gardeners were sent to fight in the two
world wars and partly due to the high cost of maintaining the estate and
the garden.
The walled garden had a revival in the 1980s due to the BBC TV
programme and book
The Victorian Kitchen Garden
.
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Where possible,
walled gardens were restored in the UK as tourist attractions; these in-
cluded West Dean in Sussex, Heligan in Cornwall and Chilton Foliat in
Berkshire.
In France, the same style kitchen garden is called a potager and built
along similar lines as kitchen gardens in the UK. Many chateaux still have a
well-kept potager and these are major tourist attractions.
The French potagers have had intermingled vegetables, fruits, flowers
and herbs since medieval times. Potagers are more popular than ever in
France; a government survey taken in 1994 revealed that 23% of the fruit and
vegetables consumed by the French are home-grown.
In France today, the potager, often called the
jardin de curé
, or country
curate's garden, has an informal or romantic design. Its inspiration is a com-
plicity with nature rather than a desire to impose order, and this fashion has
been fed by the growing influence of organic gardening in France over recent
decades.
Most people's impressions of a community garden is that it is a plot of land
situated in suburbia where the locals raise fruit and vegetables.
The UK is well known for its orchards growing a range of different
fruits, yet 90% of the fruit consumed in the UK comes from outside the
country. One of the results of this is a decline in fruit growing in counties
such as Wiltshire where they have lost 95% of their orchards in the last
40
years.
One result of this decline is that urban or community orchards are in-
creasing in popularity.
Urban orchards in city centres are growing in popularity. One example
of this is the Perth, Western Australia Urban Orchard in the city centre. The
main cultural precinct in Perth does not have ornamental flower beds and
trees, it has an urban orchard. The petunias have been replaced by kale
and the plane trees by apple trees. During the busy lunch-time period city
workers have their lunch surrounded by an urban orchard. Local residents
maintain the garden and this is a real example of bringing fresh food to the
community, it cannot get fresher. Vandalism has also declined.
