Gardening Legislators: Gardening, Ordinariness and History - A Taste for Gardening: Classed and Gendered Practices - page 77

meaning in the most trivial everyday objects. For them, goods are far more than
objects with specific uses: goods also have a cultural role as demarcators of cultural
value. Goods therefore take on tremendous importance as carriers of meaning for
people, because they are so closely tied to the construction of social identity. In
this way, goods act as indicators of how social relations are organised at particular
historical moments.
Garden aesthetics and class
While many social historians concede that there is an important relationship between
gardens and class (Bhatti 2006; Hoyles 1991; Ravetz and Turkington 1995; see
also Tilley 2006) there are very few existing empirical studies on garden aesthetics
and class. However, empirical work on gardening and class was conducted by
geographers in the late 1960s and 70s in both north and south America. For example,
in 1969 Clarissa Kimber (1973) surveyed 80 Puerto Rican gardens using low-altitude
photography, a plant census and interviews with 'the cultivators'.
Out of her findings, Kimber argues that there are six 'classes' of Puerto Rican
gardens: there is the 'jibaro' or hut garden which acts as the lowest polar prototype;
the 'manor' or great house garden which exists at the highest end of her classification
system and four other garden types exist in between. Kimber's article, concerned as
it is with the geographical features of her named garden types, provides quantitative,
descriptive summaries of the types which feature in her taxonomy. Kimber summarises
the features of each garden type. In 'Table II - Presence or Absence of Various
Traits by Garden Type' however, Kimber plots the cultivators' activities in relation
to each garden type. Here the cultural uses of the garden types is pulled in to focus.
For example, owners of the jibaro garden engage in activities such as, 'Gossiping
through windows', 'Laundering', 'Open Drains', 'Spontaneous plants tolerated
or cultivated' whereas the manor garden owners engage in none of these (Kimber
1973, 21). Conversely, manor garden owners, 'Use plants for design purposes', have
'Avenues of trees planted', engage in, 'Enjoyment of the garden from the house' and
have, 'Ornamentals segregated at least in part' whereas the jibaro owners have no
claim to any of these activities (Kimber 1973, 21). These differences are assigned
to the 'presence and persistence of two contrasting traditions': the 'vernacular' and
the 'high-style' (Kimber 1973, 23). Kimber's summary offers a discussion about
the class differences in these traditions, while avoiding any direct use of the term
class. People practising the vernacular tradition use gardens functionally for waste
disposal, gossiping and as a children's play area - they are described as having an
'unsophisticated' relationship with the garden. Interestingly however, Kimber's
conclusions recognise the relatively disinterested ease with which the high-style
tradition is consumed by its owners. Kimber's observation of the manor garden and its
focus on the need to, 'express the esthetic taste of the owner' amounts to an admission
that the garden performs at least some type of symbolic work for the household.
While Kimber's article studiously avoids any mention of class as a culturally lived
category, her ultimate conclusion is provided by recourse to economics. Chronic
poverty explains the persistence of the vernacular tradition in Puerto Rico and the
loss of aristocratic traditions has its roots in the decay of old wealth. The high-style