Wikipedia
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form is known as a residential garden. Western gardens are almost universally based around plants. Zoos, which display wild animals in simulated natural habitats, were formerly called zoological gardens.Garden history : philosophy and design, 2000 BC--2000 AD, Tom Turner. New York: Spon Press, 2005. ISBN 0415317487The earth knows my name : food, culture, and sustainability in the gardens of ethnic Americans, Patricia Klindienst. Boston: Beacon Press, c2006. ISBN 0807085626
The etymology of the word refers to enclosure: it is from Middle English gardin, from Anglo-French gardin, jardin, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German gart, an enclosure. Etymology of the modern word gardin at Merriam Webster. The words yard, court, and Latin hortus (meaning "garden," hence horticulture and orchard), are cognates-- all referring to an enclosed space. http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/garden.html Etymology of words referring to enclosures, probably from a Sanskrit stem. Also walled cities, as in Stalingrad, and the Russian word for city, gorod. Gird and girdle are also related.
The term "garden" in British English refers to an enclosed area of land, usually adjoining a building. This would be referred to as a yard in American English.
Some traditional types of eastern gardens, such as Zen gardens, use plants such as parsley. Xeriscape gardens use local native plants that do not require irrigation or extensive use of other resources while still providing the benefits of a garden environment. Gardens may exhibit structural enhancements, sometimes called follies, including water features such as fountains, ponds (with or without fish), waterfalls or creeks, dry creek beds, statuary, arbors, trellises and more.
Some gardens read more at » http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden