Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits, and herbs, are grown for consumption, for use as dyes, or for medicinal or cosmetic use. A gardener is someone who practices gardening.

Gardening ranges in scale from fruit orchards, to long boulevard plantings with one or more different types of shrubs, trees and herbaceous plants, to residential yards including lawns and foundation plantings, to plants in large or small containers grown inside or outside. Gardening may be very specialized, with only one type of plant grown, or involve a large number of different plants in mixed plantings. It involves an active participation in the growing of plants, and tends to be labor intensive, which differentiates it from farming or forestry.

Forest gardening, a plant-based food production system, is the world's oldest form of gardening. Forest gardens originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions. In the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually foreign species were also selected and incorporated into the gardens.

Robert ("Bob") David Webster (born October 25, 1938) is an American former diving champion who won gold medals at both the 1960 and 1964 Olympic games in the 10-meter platform event. He also won a gold medal at the 1963 Pan American Games and finished first in every platform diving event he entered from 1960 to 1964. He later became a diving coach at the University of Minnesota, Princeton University, and the University of Alabama. He has been inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor.

A native of California, he won his first collegiate diving title for Santa Ana Junior College, a school that did not have a pool. While at Santa Ana, Webster trained off a board in Olympic champion Sammy Lee's backyard sand pit. In 1957, Webster led the Santa Ana Dons to second and third place finishes at the conference and state swimming and diving competitions. Sammy Lee was Webster's swimming coach at Santa Ana. Lee said, "Diving-wise, he was the greatest competitor I've ever coached. He really held up under competition, as both of his Olympic medals were by narrow margins. I told him early on that he could be an Olympic champion and Bob finally said, 'If you're serious, I'm serious.' I wrote to the University of Michigan and told them I had the next Olympic champion right here at Santa Ana College. They offered him a scholarship. The rest is history."