Arbors and Pergolas
I live on the southern Oregon coast and I don't know anyone in this area who has a pergola. If an overhead structure lets in some rain and has a vine growing on it, we call it an arbor.
In preparing to write this article, I plowed through books, looking for the solution to this great mystery. I am still a bit confused about the difference between arbors and pergolas, but not as much as I was before.
" Pergola" is an Italian word which is directly descended from the Latin word "pergula". Ancient Roman pergulas were arbors which usually supported grapes, but the word was also used to describe any projection or shed which had been added onto a house.
The word "arbor" is more confusing. All of my sources tell me that it is from the Middle English word "erber" and the Old French word "erbier", both of these words originally described small Medieval gardens. Many of these gardens featured vines growing on lattice structures. I suppose that it is possible that these structures were so closely connected with herbers that they took on the name. At some time in the past, there was a phonetic change from "herber" to "arbor". This is understandable because "arbor" is the Latin word for "tree" and many Medieval arbors were created by pleaching trees together to form an outdoor room. At any rate, by the middle of the sixteenth century, the word "arbor" was being used to describe leafly retreats.
It should be obvious from the above paragraph that the ancient Romans didn't use the word "arbor", because it hadn't been invented yet, but they did create arbors. Arbors are among the oldest features in the gardens of Western Civilization, dating back to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.
The earliest arbors may have been created by planting rows of evenly spaced trees; grapevines were encouraged to grow up the trees and then woven together to form garlands which hung from tree to tree. We know that the ancient Romans grew grapes in this manner. This tradition is still practiced in areas of rich volcanic soil near Naples.
Architectural arbors are also very ancient garden features. We know that they were being constructed in the gardens of ancient Egypt, at least during the New Kingdom. There are no depiction's of ornamental gardens which survive from the Old Kingdom, but a painting which was found in the tomb of one of Amenhotep III's high officials shows a garden with two rectangular arbors. I have read that most Egyptian arbors were made of wood and that only the gardens of the wealthy featured pergolas with masonry pillars. I question this because wood was always rare in Egypt, while there was plenty of clay to make bricks from.
You may have noticed that I used the word "arbor" when writing about a structure made of wood and I changed to "pergola" when I said that some of these structures had masonry pillars. One of the main differences between modern arbors and pergolas is that pergolas are more architectural and often feature masonry or stone pillars and columns. That is mainly a modern difference; I am not sure that the ancients made this distinction.
The ancient Romans created pergulas with simple wooden posts, along with more grandly architectural pergulas. They created long pergulas which shaded walks and square pergulas over their outdoor dining areas. Pergulas also ran the length of the house to shade terraces. The term pergula seems to have mainly been used to describe structures in ornamental gardens. Pergula-like structures in commercial vineyards were known as vitus compluviata. Some Roman tombs had pergulas, but tombs were seen as the houses of the dead, so these gardens were seen as domestic gardens.
The pergolas of the Italian Renaissance were directly descended from the pergulas of ancient Rome. Ornamental gardens barely survived in Italy, but Italians have always enjoyed dining under grapevines. Pergulas may have been the only ornamental feature to survive the Dark Ages in the gardens of Western Europe.
When I think of pergolas, I think of Renaissance gardens. The gardens of the Late Renaissance featured grandly architectural pergolas; most of these haven't survived because they were expensive to maintain, but the garden of Il Trebbio, a hunting lodge belonging to the Medici, still has one of its original pergolas. This simple pergola looks the same as it did when it was created in the middle of the fifteenth century, with columns made of semicircular red bricks, which support a simple framework of rustic poles. This pergola would look totally at home in my garden. The design of pergolas hasn't changed in over 500 years. Modern pergolas are vinebearing structures which shade a terrace or long structures which shade a walk.
Now that I seem to understand what a pergola is, I have to face a more difficult question: what is an arbor, and how is an arbor different from a pergola?All of my books say that an arbor is a retreat, often containing one or more seats. In an earlier paragraph I mentioned pleached arbors, these are created by planting a tree at each corner of a square and weaving the branches together. Arbors can also be created out of wood. The main difference between a wooden arbor and a pergola is that wooden arbors have lattice walls which are intended to be covered by vines, while pergolas have vines trained up the posts. A pergola may have a masonry or lattice wall on one or even two sides, but if it is enclosed on three sides, it is really an arbor.
I have discovered that a pergola is an overhead structure which is supported by posts and pillars, while an arbor is an enclosed retreat. This answers some of my questions, but I am still confused.
I am creating a pair of pavilions out of pleached hazelnuts. These must be arbors, because they are created using trees, but they are located at the intersections of paths, so they are not retreats. I also have a doorway in my garden which has akebia and clematis vines growing on it. The vines are covering a three foot wide trellis which forms the sides and roof of the doorway. This isn't a short pergola, because the sides are covered with vines, but it also isn't a retreat.
I think that I will conform to local tradition; If an overhead structure lets in some rain and has a vine growing on it, I will call it an arbor. I am actually glad that we don't have pergolas.
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