Contextual interpretation has the dual aim of understanding the realms of a culture through its gardens, and understanding gardens through the arenas in which they operate. Although it is readily acknowledged that gardens take shape within complex landscapes of social action and provide a rich commentary on their surroundings, these contextual relationships tend to be informally dealt with as background or simply as serted as explanations for various aspects of garden form, function, and meaning. They are rarely formulated as the central theoretical or methodological issues of garden in terpretation.