Greek Gardens - Hellenistic Gardens

Hellenistic Gardens

Though Harpalus, Alexander's successor at Babylon, grew some Greek plants in the royal palace and walks, mainland Greece, mother of democracy and Western cultural traditions, was not the mother of European gardens: the great Hellenistic garden was that of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Alexandria, a grand, walled paradise landscape that included the famous Library, part of the Musaeum. Water-powered automata and water organs featured in Hellenistic gardens, playthings devised by technicians such as Hero of Alexandria, who, not incidentally, also devised machinery for the stage. In late classical times the peristyle form became dominant in grand private houses. This was a paved courtyard, which came to be outfitted with potted plants, a Persian and Egyptian idea, surrounded by a roofed colonnade. It was used for palaces and gymnasia.

Roman decorative gardening first appeared after Roman encounters with gardening traditions of the Hellenized East.