Persian gardens

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Digg some interesting facts on the ancient persian gardens.

Located on the Iranian plateau, the ancient Persia has created original trends in culture and civilization since the third millennium B.C. However, it's influence in garden design is bound to the great palaces of Persian empire from the VI century B.C. In these places where the desert it's at large, gardens were called "paradises", term that evokes the respect of the inhabitants for the elements of nature, especially water and vegetation.

The palaces from the royal city of Persepolis belonging to great kings as Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes had geometrical gardens, with plenty of vegetation from trees bearing fruits to ornamental species watered by small irrigation channels. Usually, the "paradise" was completed with a hunting park populated with animals and birds. Following the Assyrian tradition, the wild animals were captured and then released into wilderness, a dangerous sport, but also prestige rising.

Precious information are found also on the famous Persian carpets, made from silk embedded with golden wire which depicts luxuriant gardens, surrounded by walls, with a simple geometry based on the intersection of two axes (water channels) accompanied by alleys and ending with a gazebo or a water fountain. The abundant vegetation with decorative trees as sycamores, elms, cypress, a variety of shrubs - roses, myrtle, thorn apple, plenty of fruit trees - oranges, peaches, pomegranate and raised flower beds constituted an exuberant setting animated by water columns rising from the channels.  The Persian art of gardening influenced the garden design of other Middle East nations and Ancient Greece (through the Persian expansion to the Mediterranean Sea), passing numerous Asian species, even from the Far East to the Occident.