Published in Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture, Vol. LXVII, Issue 1
Written by Alexandru MEXI
By the mid and late 19th century, Romanian municipalities from south and east of the Carpathians began to modernize and beautify the cities according to Western models; particularly, by creating public parks similar to the ones designed in European capital cities such as: Paris, Vienna, London, Berlin, Budapest or Rome. Today, many aspects still remain unclear concerning the planting schemes and the plants used to decorate these early modern green public (as well as private) spaces in Romania, and one such aspect refers to the use of indigenous versus exotic plants, as well as ornamental species versus utilitarian ones. To this end, the following paper will look into Romanian public park history in order to illustrate how planting schemes and compositions were designed and indigenous/exotic and/or ornamental/utilitarian species were used in these new and modern public spaces. The research is based on archival documentation, bibliographical, and in situ research and highlights historic (19th and early 20th century) planting schemes, models for the planting of public spaces, species used and reasons for using them.
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