GEMS FOR OUR GARDENS

Many of the plants we grow today were introduced to Europe by the Arabs. In Moorish Spain there was an established botanical garden in Toledo by the 11th century. A sophisticated knowledge of water engineering enabled plants to grow in very hot, dry regions. Abd alRahman, the first Umayyad ruler in the Iberian Peninsula between 756AD and 788AD, sent ambassadors out to bring new plants back to him at his base in Cordoba.

Poppies, tulips, hyacinths, irises, narcissus, wallflowers, carnations, pheasant’s eye, jasmine, oranges, apricots, cherries, pomegranates, peaches and almonds were all Arab introductions – many of which originated from Persia. Arab gardeners loved fruit trees and valued their flowers almost as highly as their fruit.

But one flower introduced by the Ottomans in the 16th century caused financial havoc. Tulips came to Vienna in the mid-1500s and thence to Holland in 1593, when the first bulbs were planted in Leiden. Within a quarter of a century ‘Tulipmania’ took hold and bulbs changed hands at staggering prices. In the early 1630s, a single bulb of a rare tulip could cost about the same as a smart Amsterdam townhouse.

Oranges in the Moorish Real Alcazar palace in Seville