right|thumb|260px|Knot Garden at [[St Fagans museum of country life, south Wales]]

A knot garden is a garden style that was popularized in 16th century England and is now considered an element of the formal English garden. A knot garden consists of a variety of aromatic and culinary herbs, or low hedges such as box, planted in lines to create an intertwining pattern that is set within a square frame and laid on a level substrate. The spaces between these lines are often filled with stone, gravel, sand or flowering plants. Traditional plants used in knot gardens include germander, marjoram, thyme, southernwood, lemon balm, hyssop, costmary, acanthus, mallow, chamomile, rosemary, calendula, viola and santolina.

Most knot gardens now have edges made from box (Buxus sempervirens), which is easily cut into dense miniature hedges, and stays green during winters when not all of the "filling" plants are visible or attractive. However, the original designs of knot gardens did not use low box hedges until the late 17th century.

The term knot garden is closely tied to the term parterre. During the 17th century, these terms were used interchangeably as they often are today. A knot garden, however, technically refers to a garden designed with an interweaving pattern whereas "parterre" is a later French term that refers to all formal arrangement of beds.

History

Early Influences

The first occurrence of the term knot garden appears in the Italian text Hypnerotomachia Poliphili which was printed by Aldus Manutius in 1499. This reference and the general trend towards incorporating Italian styles into English gardens of the period suggests that knot gardens developed from the concept of the hedge maze, a popular Italian garden feature of the renaissance period.

The incorporation of the knot motif likely arose from a variety of influences. Knots were a key theme in the art of medieval England and can be seen in a range of media prior to their incorporation into the garden, such as on embroidery, carpets, metalwork, Celtic crosses, leatherwork, and paintings. The close association to knot gardens and Christian symbology may also explain the use of a square frame as a representation of the heavenly plane on earth. The designs for complex garden knots were likely employed from books of embroidery patterns.

Late Tudor and Early Stuart Period (1558–1625)

This period saw the widespread use of knot gardens throughout England which established the knot garden as an element of formal English gardening. The garden book, A Most Briefe and Pleasaunt Treatyse, written by Thomas Hill in about 1558, preserves the first depiction of a Tudor garden. This indicates that knot gardens were being used as garden features within a larger design as well being the sole feature of the garden as seen on other contemporary images. This is the first reference to singular knot patterns acting as compartments alongside other garden compartments. Hill's later book, The Gardener's Labyrinth', provides twelve knot designs for copying in gardens and its frequent republishing over the course of the century indicates the popularity of establishing knot gardens during this period. Thus, there is a gradual decline in the use of closed knots and interweaving patterns.

Second, there is shift towards boxwood as the preferred plant for creating knot patterns. The book, Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestis, also provides the first English recommendation for boxwood as the preferred plant for knot and parterre designs and from this point it is seen throughout gardens of England. until the term knot garden fell completely out of popular use.

Examples

thumb|The Knot Garden at the [[Red Lodge Museum, Bristol.]]Some early knot gardens have been covered over by lawn or other landscaping, but the original traces are still visible as undulations in the present day landscape. An example of this phenomenon is the early 17th-century garden of Muchalls Castle in Scotland.

Modern representations and restorations of knot gardens have become established in many temperate formal gardens throughout the world, including:

  • Alexandra Hicks Herb Knot Garden, University of Michigan, US
  • Antony House, Cornwall, England
  • Anzac Square, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Astley Castle, Warwickshire, England
  • Barnsley House, Gloucestershire, England
  • Bourton House Garden, Gloucestershire, England
  • Brooklyn Botanic Garden, New York City, US
  • Cleveland Botanical Garden, US
  • Compton Castle, Devon, England
  • Garden Museum, London
  • Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, England
  • Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, England
  • Knowle, Solihull, England
  • Little Moreton Hall, Cheshire, England
  • Red Lodge Museum, Bristol, England
  • St Fagans, South Wales
  • Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire, England
  • Sudeley Castle, Cotswolds, England
  • Dunbar’s Close garden, Edinburgh
  • Pitmedden Garden, Aberdeenshire

A knot garden is featured in Shakespeare's play Love's Labour's Lost.

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File:Knot Garden at Sudeley Castle 2019-06-10.jpg|Knot Garden at Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, England

File:London garden museum -14 Knot Garden.JPG|Garden Museum, London, England

File:Little Moreton Hall Knot Garden.jpg|Little Moreton Hall Knot Garden, Cheshire, England

File:The Knot Garden - geograph.org.uk - 829193.jpg|Knot Garden at Moseley Old Hall, Wolverhampton, England

File:Dunedin Railway Station2.jpg|Anzac Square, Dunedin, New Zealand

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See also

  • List of garden types
  • Gardens of the French Renaissance
  • Garden à la française

References

  • The Knot Garden in the Garden Museum, London