Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Skills: Gardening
While gardening is not a skill typically associated with high fantasy literature, it was one of Sam Gamgee’s many talents. At the end of the scene in the Green Dragon in Book I, Chapter 1 “The Shadow of the Past”, the reader glances into Sam’s mind to learn that “there was a lot to do up in the Bag End garden… The grass was growing fast.” This short line references a continental divide in linguistics, European culture from the medieval period to the present, the politics of decolonization lawns, and environmental science, all of which I will unpack in this essay.
Linguistics of Gardens and Grass
The Atlantic Ocean has served as a sundering sea for English, as even non-linguists observe the differences between the dialects spoken in North America and Great Britain. One confusing word is “garden”, which has the unique distinction of beginning in Proto-Germanic, ending up in Latin, and arriving in English through French by the late 13th century. The word definition of the French variant is vague, referring to something as small as a kitchen garden to as large as palace grounds. Similarly, modern interpretation varies depending on the location of the speaker. North Americans are more likely to think of a garden as a place to grow flowers and vegetables, while Brits call the entire outdoor space a garden, what North Americans would call a “yard”. This leads to initial confusion about Sam’s work at Bag End: was he merely cutting the grass and trimming the hedges of a small yard, or does he manage a larger piece of land? This would be revealed as the story progressed.
Grass was abundant in Middle-earth, with 96 instances of grass and grasslands. The quality of grass changed depending upon location. Much of the old growth forests that once stood in the Shire had been turned into “[w]ide grasslands”, better for grazing animals. In the Old Forest, “the reeds and grasses were lush and tall”, towering over the small Hobbits. The ancient North Road once connecting an empire had been “grass-grown”, earning the name “the Greenway”. Grass was even associated with magic, as the song of Lúthien Tinúviel began “The leaves were long, the grass was green”. In the desolate lands between the Shire and Elvish strongholds, “[t]he grass was scanty, coarse, and grey” amid stunted trees after centuries of war and ecological destruction. Arrival at Rivendell was marked by “much grass at either side” of the Road, while near Lórien was “grass as green as Springtime in the Elder Days” before the wars. According to Legolas, the grass had a collective memory, although not as long as stones.
“Turf” is a favorite descriptor of wild grass with twelve instances in The Fellowship of the Ring, all occurring in Book I. In “Chapter 3, Three Is Company”, Frodo hears his young cousin Pippin “running on the green turf and singing.” A few chapters later during “Chapter 5, A Conspiracy Unmasked”, the Crickhollow house “had a roof of turf” to look “as much like a hobbit-hole as possible”. In “Chapter 6, The Old Forest”, the path “faded into the turf”, while “firm turf went down to the water’s edge”. Thick turf was a sign of safety even in a strange place, as the House of Tom Bombadil was surrounded by turf with a scent that “rose strong and sweet”. Burnt turf was a sign of evil, as in “Chapter 10, A Knife in the Dark” when the Hobbits and Strider discovered a ruin at the top of a hill where “the turf was burned to the root and all within the ring the grass was scorched and shrivelled”.
The rarest term was “sward”, appearing six times in Fellowship and almost never in modern speech. The term arose in the 14th century as a synonym for turf or grass and literally refers to the skin of the earth. The word was associated with paths leading to magical places in Middle-earth: the greensward to the outdoor hall of Gildor and his fellow Elves, the sward to Mirrormere or Kheled-zâram, and the “sward of grass” to Lórien.
Medieval & Renaissance Gardens
Middle-earth can be interpreted as a medieval fantasy, meaning their lawns would resemble medieval lawns. People of this era loved “rich turf of flourishing grass” that would “cover the surface like a green cloth” according to 13th century writer Albertus Magnus. Some lawns were planted with flowers to create a meadow, often called a locus amoenus or “pleasant place”. People may have liked dandelions, which are now regarded as a weed.
By the Renaissance, gardeners developed a sophisticated understanding of herbs and shared books about how to grow medicinal plants. This move towards small, productive gardens was the result of economic and population changes in the 16th century. Rent prices and wages remained low while food costs increased due to a baby boom, making commercial gardening and larger scale farming the most profitable choice for land. At the same time, gardeners in Spain developed new garden designs based on translations of classic literature originally written in Greek. Dioscorides and Theophrastus were favorite ancient authors, although their description of plants was far from accurate by modern standards. This love of the classical style continued through the 18th century and was exported to the American colonies.
While strictly medieval and Renaissance style gardens are no longer popular, a few still exist. Horticultural historian Deirdre Larkin has recreated these gardens in the Cloisters of the Met in New York City. Larkin emphasizes that while gardens of this period were often beautiful, it was equally important for them to be useful. People grew vegetables and herbs in large beds to feed and heal a monastery, palace, or village. While hedges might be trimmed into intricate shapes to add ornamental value, the plants it protected were crucial for survival.
Rise of the Modern Lawn
Moving into the 18th century, formal Baroque-style gardens began replacing more practical early designs, at least on wealthy estates. In some cases, the hedges once used for protecting the garden became the main attraction. One such yew hedge at Powis Castle in Welshpool, Wales has grown to fifty-five feet in height and contains 15,000 square meters in plant, requiring a modern team of employees from the National Trust to use a cherry picker truck and electric trimmers for proper trimming.
Extreme examples of gardens became the rage through the Georgian and Regency eras. Gardeners discovered techniques to warm up raised beds and greenhouses, allowing tropical plants to grow in sub-tropical climates. Pineapples were the trendiest tropical plant in the 1750s, while small wooden theaters were built to show off primula auricula, a cute little flower usually grown in the central European mountains. This also happens to be the name of Frodo’s mother, indicating that Hobbits of the Shire may have discovered their own method of growing flowers from the Misty Mountains of central Middle-earth in their much flatter country. Fruit trees like apples, apricots, and nectarines could begin their lives in greenhouses before transferring to the outdoors, speeding up the growth process and allowing fruits to grow in colder climates.
Perhaps the most exciting invention was the lawn mower, designed in 1830 by Edwin Budding from Stroud, England. Rather than first trimming the grass with scythes, or using shears if one is Sam Gamgee supposedly “trimming the grass-border under the window”, and then rolling down the grass, gardeners could trim and roll with a pushable machine. Two examples of Budding’s earliest lawnmowers, along with his patent drawings, now live at the Museum in the Park in Stroud, England. Meanwhile, if you are interested in seeing many old lawnmowers or have an old lawnmower of your own, such antiques have been collected, preserved, and displayed by The Old Lawnmower Club since 1990. As for Hobbits, they would most likely be suspicious of lawnmowers and continue to use the shears that had worked for their ancestors.
Politics of Lawns
As nice as a lawn might seem to a Western audience, this growth of grass is unnatural, uneconomical, and heavily reliant on water and fertilizer. I learned of the flaws of lawns long before this essay while listening to episodes in two of my favorite podcasts, “Get Off My Lawn” from Sidedoor, the official podcast of the Smithsonian, and “Lawn Order” from 99 Percent Invisible hosted by Roman Mars. Both episodes describe the amount of work needed to maintain a beautiful lawn. On the largest end, the National Mall is often called the “Front Lawn of America” and requires a full staff for maintenance. Even for littler lawns, growing grass for looks is extremely wasteful, as private lawns in the United States account for about 20 trillion gallons of water usage per year.
Here in the United States, people’s love of lawns points to a deeper societal issue. The green front yards of the modern middle class may have descended from the Baroque gardens of British nobility and landed gentry, which were maintained by peasants. However, an important transitional stop was made along the way. Founding Fathers kept grand estates, with notable survivors being George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and James Madison’s Montpelier. These plantation houses were historically maintained by enslaved African Americans. For much of lawn history, its keepers were unwilling participants.
While Budding’s lawnmower and subsequent related inventions replaced the need for as much manual labor on the largest lawns, an unrealistic expectation was set: modern homeowners are expected to maintain their lawns with the precision of an entire unpaid staff. Homeowners associations may demand a green lawn from neighbors. In several southern states, people have been fined and arrested for not maintaining a lawn within strict standards set by the municipality and regulated by HOA board members. Lawn law enforcers are sometimes kept at bay by a local in the same spirit as Sam, who would be more than happy to break out the gardening equipment and beautify a lawn.
Conclusion
A seemingly throwaway line from Sam actually reveals a huge amount about his occupation and the world that he inhabited. Sam’s concern with his master’s garden was consistent with a peasant from the late European Medieval Period, as his ability to maintain the property while growing food and herbs was crucial to the survival of household members and perhaps others in the village. His relatively primitive tools from before the Industrial Revolution made his work more difficult but better for the environment, contrasting the destructive practices used on modern lawns. Frodo would never be reprimanded or shamed for a shabby garden at Bag End as long as Sam was his “little gardener”. The only question remaining was the extent of the property, a subtle mystery gradually solved with clues found throughout the remaining story.