The Judeo Christian Tradition

The Garden of Eden as described in Genesis, Chapter 2 (King James' Version):

8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Biblical historians have contributed significant information about the early agricultural practices of present-day Israel/Lebanon/Jordan/Palestine/Egypt. But the story of the Garden of Eden goes beyond mere horticultural interest for all Christians.

The biblical Garden of Eden is not possible to date, but its influence in ornamental horticulture has been great. Several Western cultures have set the Garden of Eden as an ideal standard to strive toward in the development of their gardens. Eastern cultures have similar romanticized ideals of the garden as a spiritual paradise, and those ideals have frequently influenced the design of their earthly landscapes.

The Bible does make reference to:

'The Hanging Gardens of Babylon,

one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The gardens, built within the walls of the royal palace at Babylon, the capital of Babylonia (now in southern Iraq), did not actually "hang" but were instead "up in the air"--that is, they were roof gardens laid out on a series of ziggurat terraces that were irrigated by pumps from the Euphrates River. Traditionally, they were the work either of the semilegendary Queen Sammu-ramat (Greek Semiramis, mother of the Assyrian king Adad-nirari III, who reigned from 810 to 783 BC) or of King Nebuchadrezzar II (reigned 604-562 BC), who built them to console his Median wife, Amytis, because she missed the mountains and greenery of her homeland.

The Hanging Gardens were described in detail by classical authors, who related that the terraces were roofed with stone balconies on which were layered various materials, such as reeds, bitumen, and lead, so that the irrigation water would not seep through the terraces. Although no certain traces of the Hanging Gardens have been found, a German archaeologist, Robert Koldewey, did uncover a peculiar series of foundation chambers and vaults in the northeastern corner of the palace at Babylon. An unusual well in one of the vaults suggests it may have been used in conjunction with a chain pump and thus was perhaps part of the substructure of the once towering Hanging Gardens.'
From Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1995