Medieval gardens were a source of pleasure and also were utilitarian being the main source of fresh fruits and vegetables for the castle or homes occupants.
Walking gardens in the castle or manor grounds were common in ancient times, and using a bit of imagination, we can emulate what they did there, and make our own medieval sights and scents in a small corner in our gardens.
Whether your yard is a large roomy one, or you are taking a small nook to make yours, here are a few ideas for the plants that were common in those times and the containers and arrangements that were used.

The photos you see below are of Cawdor Castle Gardens, and show what is planted today, which is, historically, according to a castle worker, what the gardens looked like. Any part of these gardens could be reproduced to offer you your own small medieval nook in a yard or garden.

There was much more of a distinction made between the potential use of the plants, and this often determined where they were planted.

These uses included kitchen and seasoning, vegetables and salads, food dyes, aromatic, decorative, dyes, strewing, brewing, medicinal, and magical/religious.

Different parts of the plant (roots, petals, bark, seeds, juice, or leaves) were used for different medicinal problems. (Depending upon the ailment, the plants were used for tisanes (teas), syrups, poultices, ointments, distilled waters, pills, or conserves.
Many mixed gardens existed, and some pleasure gardens. Depending on what type garden you are seeking, here are a few ideas for you.

Lawns/Flowery meadows

Albertus Magnus was an admirer of a fine lawn and wrote” “For the sight is in now way so pleasantly refreshed as by fine and close grass kept short.”

Most writers recommend digging out the original ‘waste’ plants, killing the seeds in the soil by flooding with boiling water, then laying out the lawn with turves laid in and pounded well.

Another writer recommends mowing them twice a year; lawnmowing would have been done with scythes or primitive shears.
I personally recommend no such thing as the typical today method of poisoning the natural grasses that are growing today, including clover and replacing with simple turf.
Nothing has such a wide appeal as different plants in the grass of your lawn.

Raised Beds & Sunken Beds
It appears that gardening was a thing widely discussed and written about in earlier times as it is today.

“For instance beds could be raised and edged with boards or woven panels of willow to improve drainage, just as Columella recommended” (Hobhouse). Parkinson suggests edging your beds with either live plants or dead stuff such as tiles, lead, sheep shank bones, or boards.
The sunken beds or raised beds appear to have been widely used, primarily to promote irrigation or drainage. Many of these would follow a square layout with small streams or creeks flowing through them.

Trellises and Topiaries

Roses, grapes and grapevines and in some cases rosemary, were grown on trellises while carnations were trellised in pots or urns to preven them from falling forward. Many varieties of vines were grown in the same fashion in the medieval garden.

In some cases, lattice was covered with climbing plants to be used as garden walls to provide privacy, and were fastened to the back of a seating bench, or used as an archway.

In the latter part of this period, topiaries begin to appear, and one treatise on gardening in 1599, speaking of Hampton court tells about them.
“There were all manner of shapes, men and women, half men and half horse, sirens, serving-maids with baskets, French lilies and delicate crenellations all round made from dry twigs bound together and the aforesaid ever green quick-set shrubs, or entirely of rosemary, all true to the life, and so cleverly and amusingly interwoven, mingled and grown together, trimmed and arranged picture-wise that their equal would be difficult to find.”

Trees
Trees were widely used and planted along walls, or placed into the orchard in a geometric fashion.
Some kinds, such as walnut were avoided, but fruit trees were
added to most gardens.

Coppiced trees were used quite often,larger trees such as beeches, were cut down at ground level or a little above, and the stumps allowed to sprout suckers.

Plants & trees in pots

Paintings and sketches of the gardens of the time show us pots filled with plants in many outdoor and indoor homes,
Gillyflowers in pots appear to have been especially popular in this time span, and were used both indoors and out.
Potted plants and trees are shown usually placed on top of grassy beds in gardens and entryways. Its assumed that these would have been perennial plants of perhaps small fruit trees trained to the pot.

Ceramic pots would have been the order of the day in this time period, and what we see in the pictures seem to be largely urns, or wide mouth pots or crock type jars.
There is a good article on medieval container gardening, at: http://www.serenadariva.com/SCAGardeningPages/index.htm

Ladies’ Gardens
Supposedly, castles and manors often had gardens of pleasure for walking in, with seats, private nooks screened from the wind for sitting, flowery meads for sitting and/or playing games. We see many of these in pictures of young ladies and pictures of the Virgin and Child.

Large gardens/parks of the very rich:
Parks often included multiple structures, many water features, and, at least if you listened to Crescenzi, were stocked with wild beasts such as deer and rabbit.
From several sources we can read of those gardens, and the visions they draw from us are delightful.

“Castles, manors and great monastic establishments would have both small herbers for useful and decorative plants and also grander enclosed areas in which walks could be shaded by trees and where there were artificial pools for fish as well as natural streams. . . Geoffrey de Montbray. . . came back to Normandy to sow acorns and grow oaks, beeches and other forest trees inside a park enclosed by a double ditch and a palisade” (Hobhouse)

The park at Hesdin, northern France, created in 1288, included:

“a menagerie, aviaries, fishponds, beautiful orchards, an enclosed garden named Le Petit Paradis, and facilities for tournaments. The guests were beckoned across a bridge by animated rope-operated monkey statutes (kitted up each year with fresh badger-fur coats) to a banqueting pavilion which was set amongst pools.”

“Of the gardens of royal personages and powerful and wealthy lords. And inasmuch as wealthy persons can by their riches and power obtain such things as please them and need only science and art to create all they desire. For them, therefore, let a great meadow be chosen, arranged, and ordered, as here shall be directed. Let it be a place where the pleasant winds blow and where there are fountains of waters; it should be twenty ‘Journaux’ or more in size according to the will of the Lord and it should be enclosed with lofty walls. Let there be in some part a wood of divers trees where the wild beasts may find a refuge. In another part let there be a costly pavilion where the king and his queen or the lord and lady may dwell, when they wish to escape from wearisome occupations and where they may solace themselves.”
“Let there be shade and let the windows of the pavilion look out upon the garden but not exposed to the burning rays of the sun. Let fish-pools be made and divers fishes placed therein. Let there also be hares, rabbits, deer and such-like wild animals that are not beasts of prey. And in the trees near the pavilion let great cages be made and therein place partridges, nightingales, blackbirds, linnets, and all manner of singing birds. Let all be arranged so that the beasts and the birds may easily be seen from the pavilion. Let there also be made a pavilion with rooms and towers wholly made of trees…”
Petrus Crescentiis, Opus Ruralium Commodorum. 1305.

Plants:

THE NINTH CENTURY GARDEN OF THE
‘CAPITULARE DE VILLES’ OF CHARLEMAGNE (ca.800)”lists all the suggested plants from the Capitulare.
It is said that what is necessary in pots:

Basil, rosemary (supposedly reintroduced to England by Queen Phillipa), marjoram, gilliflowers, others.
Herbs:
Mints and fennel (Roman de Rose), hyssop, balm, sweet marjoram (introduced in the 14th c to England), parsley and sage, ‘other herbs’.

Charles Estienne in his Agriculture et Maison Rustique recommends the cultivation of many rows of scented herbs, ‘both for the reserve of your scented garden, for your hedges, and for your winter stews;’ for example, sage and hyssop, thyme, lavender, rosemary, marjoram, costmary, basil, balm, ‘and one bed of camomile to make seats and labyrinths, which they call Daedalus.’

Vegetables:
Coleworts (cabbage, kale), leafbeet, pasnips turnips, and skirrets, sometimes beans and peas (grown mostly as fielc crops), garlic, chives, bulb onion, green leaved onion, watermelons, fennel, leeks, parsley, Salad plants such as borage and langdebeef.

Hills’ The Gardener’s Labyrinth lists (for a kitchen or physic garden):

Colewort, Beete, Arage [Orach], Sperage [Asparagus], Spinage [Spinach], Sorrell, Pimpernell, Lovage, Buglosse, Marigolde, Parsely, Tyme, Mints and Holihoke [Hollyhock], Mallows, Artochoke, Endive, Succory, Lettuce, Purselane, Chervils, Smallage [Wild Celery], Targon, Cresses, Bucks horne, Strawberry, Mustard seed, Leeks and Cives [Chives], Onion, Garlike, Scallion, Squill Onion, Saffron, Navews, Rape, Turnips, Radish (long and round), Parsnips, Carrets, Poppie, Cucumber, Gourd, Pompons, Mellons, musk Mellons, Blessed Thistle, Angelica, Velerian, Bitony, Lovage, Elecampane.

Vines:
Grapes, roses, jasmine, ivy. Hill suggests mellons or cucumbers in addition to vines (grapevine) for covering pergolas, and rosemary, red roses, briony, cucumber, gourd, jasmine, ‘set to grow upright’ — that is up poles, I think. He also mentions the musk rose, the damask rose, and the privet tree.

Flowers:
Roses, White madonna lilies, violets, florentine irises and sweet flags, borage, daisies, lavender, calendula, poppy, etc. Neckham also lists mandrake, daffodils, chicory, calendula (pot marygold), mugwort, feverfew, houseleek, stickadove. (Fifteenth century and later, says Hobhouse, you would see pinks, clove carnations, , stoechas lavender [aka stickadove], and heartsease). Hobhouse says that myrtle in a northern context meant bog myrtle, in the south apparently it would be the aromatic (Greek?) myrtle.

The Unicorn Tapestries include campion, bistot, orchis, lords & ladies, violas, sweetrocket, carnations, white lilies, holy thistle, leopard’s bane, stock and lady’s mantle. (Hobhouse)

The flowerbeds of the gardens of the Hotel de Pol in the 1370s included ‘roses, rosemary, lavender, wallflowers, marjoram, and sage as well as strawberries’, when it was refurbished in 1398, ‘grape vines. . . pear and apple trees, cherries and plums as well as eight “green bay trees”‘ as well as roses, lily bulbs, and flag irises. (Hobhouse)
Shrubs & Hedges
Germander, Box, Roses, Lavender, Rosemary, Privet and others.

Crescenzi’s gardens of the middle size should be ‘surrounded by ditches and hedges of thorns or roses. . . . in warm places make a hedge of pomegranates and in cold places of nuts or plums and quinces’. Hill gives directions for creating a quickset hedge using seeds of Briers (Eglantine roses), brambles, the white Thorne, Gooseberry and Barberry trees, mixed with vetch-meal and smeared into old untwisted rope, thus making a sort of 16th century seed-tape. For short hedges/edgings inside the garden Parkinson suggests thrift, germander, hyssop, marjoram, savory, thyme, lavender cotton, juniper, yew, and box; for larger hedges Hill and Parkison suggest privet, sweetbriar, white thorn, roses; also lavender, rosemary, sage, southernwood, lavender cotton, or Cornell (cherry trees).

The visitor to Hampton Court (1599) describes it: “The hedges and surrounds were of hawthorn, bush firs, ivy, roses, juniper, holly, English or common elm, box and other shrubs, very gay and attractive.”

Thomas Hill gives instructions for making a sort of ‘seed tape’ for hedges, by slightly unplaiting an old rope, and mixing shrub seeds with tar and spreading it into the rope. Mixed hedges where shrubs of quicker growth were mingled with slower growing ones in order to provide a succession growth, were often recommended.

Trees:

Orchard trees that give fruit (apples, pears, plums); tender perennials such as bay, orange, pomegranate in the south and later in period, Olives and date palms in the south. Nut trees such as chestnut and almond. Pine and Cypress. Of non-fruiting trees, linden or lime trees were popular in northern Europe; William Stephen in 1180 mentions elms, oaks, ash, and willow “along watercourses and to make shady walks” (says Hobhouse); the Roman de la Rose also mentions fir, and oriental plane trees.

Many of these would have been placed so that privacy was assured, some in the knot styles of the older courts.
To make your own small medieval style ladies garden, or herb garden would be a small amount of time spent in the planning and some interesting work in the building, but it would provoke constant comment and no small amount of pleasure for you when seated among the same gardens that existed in medieval times.

14 Responses to “A Medieval Garden Nook”