Chambers was an early supporter o f the Chinese style of gardening, and a fierce critic of Capability Brown, the leading designer of English gardens at the time, who Chambers said was boring. Chambers wanted gardens to be full of surprises, like those he saw in China, and he urged Britons to adopt the Chinese techniques of concealment, asymmetry and naturalism.

Before Chambers, others had made similar observations. In fact, Chinese gardens had been gaining traction in the UK ever since the Venetian merchant and traveler Marco Polo became the first European to describe them in the 1200s after visiting the summer palace of Kublai Khan in today's Shangdu in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Polo also described the gardens of the imperial palace in today's Beijing and talked of pavilions, lakes, and a man-made hill covered with evergreen trees and green azurite stones.