Garden histories since the mid 1990s have increasingly turned to studies of vernacular gardens as sites of identity formation. More recently, the development of environmental history and specifically urban environmental history has started to show how vernacular gardening in suburban and urban spaces has contributed to changes in urban environments. Relatively little work on home gardening history in this sense has been undertaken in the New Zealand context, while in Australia such work is well underway. This study augments knowledge of home gardening history in New Zealand by focussing on one urban area, Christchurch, known both as the 'Garden City' and as 'one of the most English cities outside of England'. An examination of gardening literature over the period from European colonisation in 1850 to the first visit to the city by a reigning monarch in 1954 highlights changes in gardening tropes rather than particular garden fashions or elements. The four principal tropes of abundance, beauty, protection and sustenance, each supported with a particular kind of ritual-like garden competition, show how gardening discourses related to ideas about the maintenance of the social and cultural order. A more objective measure of attitudes to gardens is gained by examining 1823 property advertisements across the period. Categorised by suburb this analysis shows a level of gardening variation across the city. Following this analysis, case studies of four suburbs in three areas were undertaken. These were based primarily on oral histories and reveal the extent of gardening variation across the city, and the limited but significant effect that gardening discourses had on gardens. This suggests methodological problems with many studies of vernacular gardens, as well as opportunities for further studies. This thesis also demonstrates the value of home gardening histories to urban environmental history, particularly with regard to the former colonies of the British Empire.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T13:57:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 YuriSS_DISSERT_1-99.pdf: 4244362 bytes, checksum: 91b25464e30c3e3592f1fbbe4b7c40e9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-11-26 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico / The necessity of the insertion of the capital of Rio Grande do Norte in the world-wide commercial scene and its claim as the seat of political power, in ends of nineteenth and beginning of twentieth century, determined the direction of urban interventions undertaken by government to restructure the city. In that matter, there were several actions of improvements and embellishment in Natal, which had, as a starting point, the adequacy works of the port, located in the Ribeira quarter, with the aim of ending the physical isolation that reinforced its economic stagnation. Besides the problems faced in the opening bar of the Potengi River, and would complement the required improvements, other barriers demonstrate the tension established between the physic-geographic field and the man: the flooded and slope which connected Cidade Alta and Ribeira the first two quarters of the city.The execution of these works demanded knowledge whose domain and application it was for engineering. But, how the actions done for the engineers, in sense to transform natural areas into constructed spaces made possible the intentional conformation of the quarter of the Ribeira in a commercial and politician-administrative center, in the middle of the XIX century and beginning of the XX? Understand, therefore, the employment effects of technology on the physical-geographical Ribeira, is the objective of this work that uses theoretical and methodological procedures of Urban Environmental History, by analyzing the relationship between the environment and the man, mediated by knowledge and use of technologies. The documental research was used, as primary sources, the Messages of the Provincial Assembly Government that later became the Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Norte reports and articles on specialized publications, in addition to local newspapers. The work is structured in five chapters. First, some comments about Urban Environmental History (Chapter 1) supplemented with analysis of the conceptual construction of nature in the Contemporary Era and its application in the city (chapter 02), the following chapters (03 and 04) deal with the rise of engineers as a active group in the Brazilian government frameworks and their vision about the nature inside the urban environment and it is studied how the professional technicians dealt with the improvement work of the harbor and in the shock with the natural forces. Other works that would complement this "project" of modernization and had had natural obstacles to be removed the Ribeira flood and slope constitute the subject of the fifth chapter. Finally, some final considerations retake the initial discussions aiming an association between the technique and the nature as junction elements inside the process of constitution of a Modern Natal / A necessidade de inser??o da capital do Rio Grande do Norte no cen?rio comercial mundial e sua afirma??o como sede do poder pol?tico, em fins do s?culo XIX e in?cio do XX, determinou o rumo das interven??es urbanas empreendidas, pela administra??o p?blica, para reestruturar a cidade. Nesse sentido, v?rias foram as a??es de melhoramentos e de aformoseamentos em Natal, que tiveram, como ponto de partida, as obras de adequa??o do porto, localizado no bairro da Ribeira, com a finalidade de p?r fim ao isolamento f?sico que refor?ava a sua estagna??o econ?mica. Al?m dos problemas enfrentados para a abertura da barra do rio Potengi, e que complementaria as necess?rias melhorias, outros entraves demonstrariam a tens?o instaurada entre o meio f?sico-geogr?fico e o homem: o alagado e o elevado que ligava a Cidade Alta e Ribeira os dois primeiros bairros da cidade. A execu??o dessas obras demandava conhecimento cujo dom?nio e aplica??o cabia ? engenharia. Mas, de que modo as a??es realizadas pelos engenheiros, no sentido de transformar ?reas naturais em espa?os constru?dos, possibilitariam a conforma??o intencional do bairro da Ribeira num centro comercial e pol?tico-administrativo, entre meados do s?culo XIX e in?cio do XX? Compreender, portanto, os efeitos do emprego da t?cnica sobre o espa?o f?sico-geogr?fico da Ribeira, constitui o objetivo deste trabalho que teve como ferramental te?rico-metodol?gico a Hist?ria Ambiental Urbana, ao analisar a rela??o entre o meio ambiente e o homem, mediada pelo conhecimento e emprego de tecnologias. Na pesquisa documental, utilizou-se, como fontes prim?rias, as Mensagens do Governo ? Assembl?ia Provincial posteriormente Assembl?ia Legislativa do Estado , relat?rios e artigos de publica??es especializados, al?m dos peri?dicos locais. O trabalho estruturou-se em cinco cap?tulos. Primeiro tece-se coment?rios sobre a Hist?ria Ambiental Urbana (cap?tulo 1) complementado, com a an?lise da constru??o conceitual da natureza na Era Contempor?nea e sua aplica??o na cidade (cap?tulo 02); os cap?tulos seguintes (03 e 04) versam sobre a ascens?o dos engenheiros, como grupo atuante nos quadros administrativos brasileiros e a vis?o da categoria sobre a natureza dentro do meio urbano e estuda-se a maneira como esses profissionais lidaram com as obras de melhoramento do porto e o seu embate com as for?as naturais. As demais obras que complementariam esse projeto de moderniza??o e que tiveram obst?culos naturais a serem removidos o alagado e o elevado constituem a ?tica do quinto cap?tulo. Por fim, s?o retomadas as discuss?es iniciais entorno da rela??o t?cnica e natureza, como elementos articuladores, dentro do processo de constitui??o de uma Moderna Natal