Garden

A garden was an area in which plants were cultivated for recreational or aesthetic, rather than purely agricultural, reasons. They could range from large public gardens, tended by professional gardeners, to small private plots for the raising of flowers or fresh crops. Gardens could by cultivated outdoors or indoors in greenhouses or open spaces. Some gardens deliberately included wildlife, and most attracted insects. Some gardens, like the Garden of Butterflies on New Escrow, were designed explicitly to support and attract wildlife.

The Jedi found gardens aesthetically appealing and peaceful, and the Jedi Temple on Coruscant included Meditation Gardens on many floors.

Gardening—the practice of maintaining a garden—was also popular among higher-ranking segments of the Galactic Empire. Emperor Palpatine was known to maintain lavish private gardens, employing master gardeners to cultivate them and stealing gardeners from any subordinate whose gardeners rivaled his. Prince Xizor, who was not part of the government but played Imperial politics at the highest levels, likewise had opulent gardens on his personal skyhook. Another prominent Imperial who gardened was Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, who ruled the Imperial Remnant. He kept a garden to which he tended personally, finding the idea of imposing orderliness and organization on nature and giving each plant equal allotments and opportunity to grow to be a positive metaphor for the Remnant's practices. General Evir Derricote, a botanist at heart, also kept a garden which he tended personally, sometimes putting more attention into it than to running the 181st Imperial Fighter Group. His subordinate, Soontir Fel, also tended to the same garden and seemed to enjoy doing so, perhaps because of his roots growing up on an agro-combine on Corellia.

Text and facts from the “Garden/Legends” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.