Perry's Perennial Pages, Perennial Arcade Quiz

Garden History Trivia

Every wonder when the first greenhouse was built? who invented the wheelbarrow, the garden hose, the flower pot? Who had the first lawn? Try this quiz to learn some lesser known, but none the less important, persons and facts in the history of gardening.

Click on the answer link, then back button for the next question.

1. When were the first garden hoses made? Answer

2. When did the first European garden hose appear? Answer

3. When was the earliest record of bonsai? Answer

4. When did the first lawns appear? Answer

5. Who invented the first greenhouse in 1619? Answer

6. Who discovered the concept of "microclimates"? Answer

7. Who was the first to popularize, if not invent, flower pots? Answer

8. What firm produced the first garden catalog with prices? Answer

9. When and where was the earliest western depiction of a wheelbarrow? Answer

10. Who invented the wheelbarrow? Answer


1. around 400BC, of ox gut

2. in 1672 in Amsterdam, made of leather

3. in wall paintings from AD706, although then known as penjing in China and not brought to Japan until AD1195, and not called "bonsai" until much later

4. in the 1st century AD, promoted in Greece by Pliny the Younger

5. the mathematician Salomon de Caus, being a movable wooden framed structure to shelter orange trees at Heidelberg Castle in Germany

6. Nathaniel Ward in 1832 with his enclosed glass boxes known as Wardian cases, and used extensively on plant explorations after

7. the Egyptian pharoah Ramses III, about 1230BC

8. Telford family, Yorkshire, UK in 1775; previously, listings from firms had no prices

9. a stained glass window in Chartres Cathedral, France, dating to AD1220

10. Chuko Liang, a Chinese general, in AD231 for use by his troops in moving supplies through mucky soil. To that time carts had at least 2 wheels and were 2-person affairs. His had a large central wheel, flanked on either side by boxes to hold goods.

For more on these folks, and others, see the book Gardeners, Gurus and Grubs by George Drower, Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire, UK.