Mythical Gardens

In a garden, art, science, nature and the mind collide. It is no surprise then, that many stories in ancient religions and philosophies are set in gardens. Christians believe that the Garden of Eden once existed before Adam and Eve were expelled from it, while the Hanging Garden of Babylon has captivated the creative imagination of humans for centuries, as have legends about the Gardens of the Hesperides in the ancient Mediterranean world. Like ancient Chinese stories about the magical gardens on Mount Kunlun and its counterpart Mount Penglai, they all reflect the complex interaction between the human and divine worlds. In this series we will not only be looking be looking at the myths themselves but also, where possible, the reality that lay behind them and their impact on gardens more recently.

Series image: Erastus Salisbury Field, The Garden of Eden, c.1860, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, public domain

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Please scroll down below the links to see the full details of each talk.

This ticket costs £28 for the entire course of 4 sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £8 via the links below. [Gardens Trust members £21 or £6 each].

Ticket sales close 4 hours before the first talk.

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 2 weeks) will be sent shortly afterwards.

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Week 1. 25 February: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. First in this series of 4 online talks, £8 each or all 4 for £28 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 4 for £21)

Week 2. 4 March: The Garden of the Hesperides. Second in this series of 4 online talks, £8 each or all 4 for £28 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 4 for £21)

Week 3. 11 March: Mythical Chinese Gardens. Third in this series of 4 online talks, £8 each or all 4 for £28 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 4 for £21)

Week 4. 18 March: Eden. Last in this series of 4 online talks, £8 each or all 4 for £28 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 4 for £21)

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Week 1. 25 February: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Babylon was the capital of one of the great empires of the ancient world, renowned for its wealth and architectural splendour, and of course for its Hanging Gardens, which were one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. So, you might be surprised to know there is absolutely no archaeological evidence – at least in the surviving remains of Babylon – to prove the garden’s existence. That hasn’t stopped artists imagining what they looked like, with varying degrees of fantasy. Indeed, Babylon and its gardens continue to inspire those with fertile imaginations, and the only problem is separating myth from reality. That’s what I’m aiming do in this lecture.

Image: Ferdinand Knab, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, 1886, Wikimedia Commons, public domain

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Week 2. 4 March: The Garden of the Hesperides

The garden of the Hesperides belonged to the queen of the gods – Hera in Greek [Juno in the later Roman version] and lay somewhere at the western edge of the known Mediterranean world. It became the setting for several well-known myths including the story of tree [or maybe an orchard of trees] which bore golden apples said to give immortality to those who ate them. These stories date back to at least the 7th century BC, and there are at least 15 different retellings in Greek texts over the next thousand years and at least six more in Latin. Then, in the 17th century it was picked up and reinvented by artists and garden writers writing about “golden apples” of a different sort.

Image: The Hesperides, the tree bearing the golden apples and Ladon the dragon, detail from the Meidias Hydria or water jug, c.420 BC, ©The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence

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Week 3. 11 March: Mythical Chinese Gardens

Many gardens in Chinese mythology have a cosmic role connecting earth to the heavens and underworld. Ancient stories tell how most are in inaccessible places such as high mountains, or islands that float away when anyone nears them, and how they serve as homes to deities and immortals. Others are hidden utopias where humans and nature are at one. Although very varied in style and imagery, these gardens usually include features such as peach trees which bear fruit that confers the gift of eternal life, magical lakes and streams, caves and grottos, moon gates as symbolic entrances, winding paths, layered mountain terraces and strange animals and plants. These mythical gardens still have a profound effect on the way that Chinese gardens are designed today.

Image: The Peach Festival of the Queen Mother of the West, formerly attributed to Fang Chunnian c.1225-1264. Smithsonian, public domain

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Week 4. 18 March: Eden

Most of us, even if we are not Christians, will know the Bible story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden – or think we do. In fact, the Book of Genesis says very little about Eden, and nothing really about what it was like or what, apart from the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, grew in it. I suspect that whatever else you think you know it’s because the story of Eden is the most popular Old Testament subject in Christian art, and you’ve simply absorbed the way that artists have imagined it. Do you even know where it was? Most of us I’m sure would say without much hesitation - somewhere in the Middle East, but you might be surprised to know that about eighty different locations have been proposed - from the Baltic to Polynesia, and from the North Pole to China, via Kashmir, the Seychelles, and of course several states of America.

Image: Zondeval [The Fall of Man] (after design by Nicolaes de Bruyn), c.1630 – 1652, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, public domain

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Dr David Marsh was awarded his PhD in 2005 for a study of the ‘Gardens and Gardeners of Later-Stuart London’ and has been lecturing and supervising research in Garden History ever since. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and was co-course director for their MA in Garden History. A trustee of the Gardens Trust from 2016-2023, he helped set up and run the Trust’s online lecture programme and is the author of a weekly blog about garden history.