The sixteenth century saw the emergence of inexpensive instruction manuals for aspiring gardeners. These manuals were not printed in Latin. Instead, they were printed in the vernacular which enabled their dissemination to a much wider audience than before.

Thomas Hyll's Profitable Arte of Gardening, published in numerous editions between 1568 and 1608, was one of the earliest of these guides. This woodcut shows a garden, relatively modest in stature when compared to the grander gardens of royalty and nobility. Nevertheless, certain elements from these larger gardens do feature, for example, the garden is separated into compartments and a knot can be seen decorating the centre.

Entry adapted from Painting Paradise London 2015.