Gethsemane. The garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, was a favorite spot with Jesus Christ, where he could find solitude with his disciples. It was to this garden that Jesus retired with his disciples after eating his last Passover and instituting the Lord’s Evening Meal. There he withdrew a short distance from his disciples and prayed fervently, being ministered to by an angel. The traitor Judas, knowing of Jesus’ custom, led a mob to Gethsemane, where he betrayed Jesus with a kiss.​—Mt 26:36, 46-49; Lu 22:39-48; Joh 18:1, 2.

Burial Places. At times gardens were used as burial places. Manasseh and his son Amon were buried in the garden of Uzza. (2Ki 21:18, 25, 26) It was in a garden, in a new memorial tomb, that Jesus was buried. (Joh 19:41, 42) The Israelites fell into the bad practice of sacrificing to pagan gods in the gardens, seating themselves among the burial places and eating loathsome things in their observance of false religion, for which Jehovah declared that he would render judgment.​—Isa 65:2-5; 66:16, 17.

King Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard, he claimed, for a vegetable garden.​—1Ki 21:2.

The above-mentioned parklike gardens would usually be outside the city, except in the case of gardens of kings or very rich men. The King’s Garden, near the place where Zedekiah and his men tried to escape from Jerusalem during the Chaldean siege, was probably situated just outside the SE wall of that city. (2Ki 25:4; Ne 3:15) Josephus speaks also of a place called Etan, which he locates 13 to 16 km (8 to 10 mi) from Jerusalem and which he describes as “delightful for, and abounding in, parks and flowing streams”, where, so he claims, Solomon was accustomed to ride in his chariot. (Jewish Antiquities, VIII, 186 [vii, 3]) The garden in which King Ahasuerus held a great seven-day banquet in Shushan, during the third year of his reign, must have been a large and beautiful one.​—Es 1:1-5.