A gardener is someone who practices

gardening Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits ...

, either professionally or as a

hobby A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing Sport, sports, or pursu ...

Description

Royal Gardener John Rose and King Charles II - Hendrick Danckerts 1675

Gardener on a stepladder collecting fruit (4881973053)

A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the

ist in a residential

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...

, the home-owner supplementing the family food with a small

vegetable garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of larg ...

, to an employee in a

plant nursery A nursery is a place where plants are propagated and grown to a desired size. Mostly the plants concerned are for gardening, forestry or conservation biology, rather than agriculture. They include retail nurseries, which sell to the general p ...

or the

head gardener A head gardener is an individual who manages all horticultural aspects of a property or garden, including staff and volunteers. The properties they manage include historic gardens and private estates, as well as amenity horticulture teams, for ex ...

in a large estate.

Garden design and maintenance

The

garden designer A garden designer is someone who designs the plan and features of gardens, either as an amateur or professional. The compositional elements of garden design and landscape design are: terrain, water, planting, constructed elements and buildings, p ...

is someone who will design the garden, and the gardener is the person who will undertake the work to produce the desired outcome.

Design

The term gardener is also used to describe garden designers and

landscape architect A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water manageme ...

s, who are involved chiefly in the design of gardens, rather than the practical aspects of horticulture.

Garden design Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. ...

is considered to be an art in most cultures, distinguished from gardening, which generally means ''garden maintenance''.

Vita Sackville-West Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as wel ...

Gertrude Jekyll Gertrude Jekyll ( ; 29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote ...

and William Robinson were garden designers as well as gardeners. Garden design is the creation of a plan for the construction of a garden, in a design process. The product is the garden, and the garden designers attempt to optimize the given general conditions of the soil, location and

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...

, ecological, and geological conditions and processes to choose the right plants in corresponding conditions. The design can include different themes such as perennial,

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

, or shade gardens. In 18th-century Europe, country estates were refashioned by landscape gardeners into

formal gardens Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. ...

or landscaped park lands, such as at

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...

, France, or

Stowe Gardens Stowe or Stowe Gardens, formerly Stowe Landscape Gardens, are extensive, Grade I listed gardens and parkland in Buckinghamshire, England. Largely created in the eighteenth century the gardens at Stowe are arguably the most significant example ...

, England. Today, landscape architects and garden designers continue to design both private garden spaces, residential estates and parkland, public parks and parkways to site planning for campuses and corporate office parks. Professional landscape designers are certified by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

Maintenance

The designer also provides directions and supervision during construction, and the management of establishment and maintenance once the garden has been created. The gardener is the person who has the skill to maintain the garden's design. The gardener's labor during the year include planting flowers and other plants,

weeding Weed control is a type of pest control, which attempts to stop or reduce growth of weeds, especially noxious weeds, with the aim of reducing their competition with desired flora and fauna including domesticated plants and livestock, and in natur ...

pruning Pruning is a horticultural, arboricultural, and silvicultural practice involving the selective removal of certain parts of a plant, such as branches, buds, or roots. The practice entails the ''targeted'' removal of diseased, damaged, dead, ...

grafting Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together. The upper part of the combined plant is called the scion () while the lower part is called the rootstock. The succ ...

, deadheading, mixing and preparation of

insecticides Insecticides are substances used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and by consumers. Insecticides are claimed to b ...

and other products for

pest control Pest control is the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest; any animal, plant or fungus that impacts adversely on human activities or environment. The human response depends on the importance of the damage done and will range ...

, and tending garden

compost Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant, food waste, recycling organic materials and manure. The resulting m ...

. Weeds tend to thrive at the expense of the more refined

edible An edible item is any item that is safe for humans to eat. "Edible" is differentiated from "eatable" because it does not indicate how an item tastes, only whether it is fit to be eaten. Nonpoisonous items found in nature – such as some mushroo ...

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that i ...

s. Gardeners need to control weeds using physical or

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...

methods to stop weeds from reaching a mature stage of growth when they could be harmful to domesticated plants. Early activities such as starting young plants from seeds for later transplantation are usually performed in early spring.

References

{{Authority control Horticulturists

Description

Garden design and maintenance

Design

Maintenance

See also

References