Walls add permanence and establish boundaries within a yard or landscape design. They also offer privacy and block undesirable views, like your neighbor's side-yard junk pile. Plants that adapt best to walls are those that are climbers or that spill or trail over the walls.
A Brief History of Walled Gardens
The concept of walled gardens has been around for centuries. Records show that Egyptian gardens in 3000 B.C. established the tradition of compartments separated by plant-covered walls and arbors. The paradise gardens of ancient Persia were vast, park-like areas with monumental walls covered with grapevines and fruit trees. Moorish architecture and gardens influenced North Africa, Italy and Spain, with features that included intimate and enclosed gardens with high walls.
While the gardens of ancient Greece focused more on crops and enhancing public spaces, Greek architecture incorporated central columned courtyards and outdoor living areas. Formal Roman gardens influenced western Europe for about 500 years. Middle class Romans lived in town houses that featured small enclosed gardens used as outdoor rooms.
Machu Picchu
Unbeknownst to other garden designing civilizations at the time,
Machu Picchu, was an architectural and engineering marvel built by the Incans in the 15th century. This ancient Peruvian city in the Amazon jungle above the Urubamba River was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911 after being "lost" for more than three centuries. The subtropical climate and fertile soil of Machu Picchu has blessed it with lush, terraced landscaping and vegetation-covered walls on a mountain high above the clouds. In this amazing region, various trees, moss, bushes and ferns thrive, along with exotic flowers -- most notably,
exotic varieties of orchids.
