Although gardening dates to Neolithic times, notes Edward Hyams in his classic A History of Garden and Gardening (1971), ornamental gardening is a product of urban civilization. The first makers of those gardens were ancient Mesopotamians, he says, in the 'land between the rivers.'
It is from that region--today's tortured Middle East--that the very word for such a garden arose. 'Paradise,' any region or state of surpassing delight, as it has been defined. Hence, the walled garden of the First Persian Empire was Ignoring deity-inspired inspiration, however, Hyam maintains, perhaps questionably: "Garden design has always--except for short periods in the cultures of China, Japan and England when it was raised to the level of a fine art--been a branch of architecture." Given the state of modern architecture, one can only shudder.
Farther east, the Persian was Bagh enclosed area with many types of trees and shrubs as well as flowers. To this day bagh or garden is common prefix to many urban areas, just Garden City is for such communities as St. Catharines, Ontario; neighbourhoods in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Victoria, BC; Singapore; Bangalore, India; Nigeria nickname for Port Harcourt; and a village on Long Island, NY plus 20 others in the U.S. of A. But not, as one might think, battered Baghdad whose name is said to derive from its pre-Islamic founding in the 8th century and meaning 'Bestowed by God.'
Perhaps then it is not inappropriate that the acclaimed musical Kismet, making its debut on Broadway in 1953, took placed Baghdad when it was was an epicentre of civilization with its legendary leaders. And on stage, The Caliph begs his beloved: Take my hand/I'm a stranger in Paradise/All lost in a wonderland . . .
Or, as its has been said, who loves a garden, still Eden keeps.
