garden, french

7/30/2019 Garden, French

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French B aroque

Portrait of Andr Le Ntre (12 March 1613-15 September 1700) by Carlo Maratta

Main article:Garden la franaise

TheGarden la franaise, or Baroque French gardens, in the tradition ofAndr Le Ntre.

The French Classical garden style, orGarden la franaise, climaxed during the reign ofLouis XIVof France (1638

1715) and his head gardener ofGardens of Versailles,Andr Le Ntre(16131700). The inspiration for these

gardens initially came from theItalian Renaissance gardenof the 14th and 15th centuries and ideas of French

philosopherRen Descartes(15761650). At this time the French opened the garden up to enormous proportions

compared to their Italian predecessor. Their gardens epitomize monarch and 'man' dominating and manipulatingnature to show his authority, wealth, and power.

[8]

Rene Descartes, the founder of analytical geometry, believed that the natural world was objectively measurable and

that space is infinitely divisible. His belief that "all movement is a straight line therefore space is a universal grid of

mathematical coordinates and everything can be located on its infinitely extendable planes" gave us Cartesian

mathematics. Through the classical French gardens this coordinate system and philosophy is now given a physical

and visual representation.[9]

This French formal and axial garden style placed the house centrally on an enormous and mainly flat property. A

large central axis that gets narrower further from the main house, forces the viewer's perspective to the horizon line,

making the property look even larger. The viewer is to see the property as a cohesive whole but at the same time is

unable to see all the components of the garden. One is to be led through a logical progression or story and be

surprised by elements that arent visible until approached. There is an allegorical story referring to the owner throughstatues and water features which have mythological references. There are small, almost imperceptible grade

changes that help conceal the gardens surprises as well as elongate the gardens views.[10]

These grand gardens have organized spaces meant to be elaborate stages for entertaining the court and guests with

plays, concerts and fireworks displays. The following list of garden features were used:

Alle

Axis
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Bosquet

Canal

Cul de sac

Fountains

Grottoswith rocaille

Orangerie Parterrede broderie

Patte d'oie(Goose foot)

Tapis Vert

Topiary

DIY Parterre de broderie

The embroidered parterre fell out of fashion for good reason...it is hard to think of another garden design so time-

consuming and expensive to install and maintain. But here is a modern solution, from French designer Romain

Duclos: place the stencil on the grass and in a few days you have your own parterre de broderie!

Available for 45 euro on thedesigner's website, or you could DIY...

Characteristics of the formal French Garden
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The garden depicted in the wallpaper of the previous post is classically French...compare it to the above illustration

fromPlans et dessins nouveaux du jardinage by Michel le Bouteaux, c. 1700.

Elements of the formal French (as opposed to what many people think of as 'country French') style are:

-a strong axis of symmetry for the garden that is centered on the house

-symmetrical arrangement of features on either side of that axis

-the pate d'oie, or goose-foot pattern, of paths radiating from a circular feature

-fanciful parterres (flower beds, basically) that look like scroll work or embroidery

-elaborate trelliswork, often defining one or several walls of a room in the garden

Note that there is plenty of 'path', but no 'lawn'...these gardens were for strolling. In enormous hooped skirts and

towering wigs. In groups with people similarly attired. Wide paths were a must, and one didn't stray into the grass in

high heeled silk shoes.
http://www.botanicus.org/title/b12451046http://www.botanicus.org/title/b12451046http://www.botanicus.org/title/b12451046http://www.botanicus.org/title/b12451046http://bp1.blogger.com/_REjQQ5OAUrM/R3mGDxuLpgI/AAAAAAAAAX4/Rus0yzJQ6V4/s1600-h/french+garden+from+botanicus.jpghttp://www.botanicus.org/title/b12451046


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A French garden is a very specific style of formal garden. Many people think of French gardens when they hear

the words "formal garden," with the gardens at Versailles being a notable example. French gardens are used

most classically in thelandscapingof large formal structures like museums, private mansions, and so forth,

although one could also install such a garden in front of a more modest structure.

Although this style is termed "French," it actually originated in Italy. French visitors were struck by the style ofItalian formal gardens, and they resolved to bring the style back home, developing their own version of the

formal garden with uniquely French features. Like all formal gardens, a French garden is characterized by a

very precise, formal layout. Symmetry and order are very highly valued, with all hedges, lawns, trees, plants,

and shrubs being meticulously maintained.

The distinguishing feature of a French garden is that it is centered on the facade of a building, differentiating it

from many other formal gardening styles. The French garden draws the eye to the building, and integrates the

building into the landscape with its very geometric style. These gardens also typically have numerous reflecting

pools, fountains, and ponds, with gravel and lawn paths to allow people to navigate the garden. Clipped

evergreens are a common feature inFrench gardens, bordering paths and flower beds.

Many French gardens are also dotted with small ornamental buildings, which may range from open-

airgazebosfor summer entertaining to fully enclosed structures. Historically, each structure had a very specific

purpose, with these buildings being used to play board games, serve tea, listen to music, paint, and engage in

other recreations in the garden. Such buildings were also used by royalty for formal audiences with guests.

Maintaining a traditional French garden usually requires a lot of work. The garden needs constant trimming,

pruning, weeding, and other maintenance tasks, as it must look immaculate at all times. New flowers are

constantly being planted to replace worn and tired plants, and the design of the garden is constantly being

refined with small and subtle details.

In the 1800s, the style of the French garden began to wane in favor of more natural and wild-looking gardens,

probably in part because of the tough maintenance. The French garden still endures in many corners of the

world, however, and dedicated gardeners prize theirs very highly, since it can take decades for

a French garden to reach its full potential.

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Such buildings were also used by royalty for formal audiences with guests. Maintaining atraditional Frenchgarden usually requires a lot of work. The garden needs constant trimming, pruning,

weeding, and other maintenance tasks, as it must look immaculate at all t imes.

If youre looking to plant agarden and want a specific look, remember these basic

pointers. Frenchgardens are very geometric. The center should have some sort of faade and emanate

outward.

Many people think ofFrenchgardens when they hear the words "formal garden," withthe gardens at Versailles being a notable example.Frenchgardens are used mostclassically in the landscaping of large formal structures like museums, private mansions,and so forth, although one could also install such a garden in front of a more modest

structure.

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(Photo from "Het ontwerpen van tuinen in stijl" by John Brookes)

Characteristic of the french garden is the mixture of mathematical lines, balance, sym

flower-beds are bordered with low hedges or repeatedly used plants in a long row. Tclusters of perannials and/or shrubs, which are situated symmetricly to both sides o

or gravel.But also a balustrade, elegant stairs, roses in big (stone-)vases and pergolas would A french garden can be very beautiful even in a small garden. The photo above does

Sculptures, ornaments en garden-vases play an important rol as eye-catchers.

The contruction of such a garden is quite expensive due to the used materials and thfinished, the garden will be a pleasure for the eyes for many years, without causing

Maintanence is easy and restricted to some cutting and weeding throughout the seas

autumn. For people with little spare time a very good option.~


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Think of French Garden Design and you immediately think of beautiful, intricate knot gardens orlong avenues of trees interspaced with large ponds and fountains. French Garden Design, alsocalled Jardin la Franaise, is a very formal, very ordered gardening style with lots of straightlines and symmetry. It is above all a style created to impress however we can take ideas from thisstyle and use it to great effect in a domestic garden.

Key Features of a French Garden Design

The focus of the garden tends to be the house, usually a palace or chateau and paths radiate

out of this creating long axial views.

A geome tr ic pl an is us ed and syme tt ry is very impo rt an t.

A ce nt ra l ax is leads aw ay fr om the ho us e - pe rp en di cu la r to the ho us e.

Paths tend to be gravel and edged with clipped hedges and topiary laid out in symmetrical

patterns.

Water is often a key feature of French garden design and lots of round pools and long

rectangles of water will be incorporated , the reflection of the water adding to the symmetry and

tranquill ity of the scene. Fountains and cascades are also very common features.

Close to the house planting is kept low (no trees) and tends to consist of parterres. Parterres

close to the house can b e quite intricately patterened and will tend to become more simplefurther from the house.

Further from the house paths are o ften edged with trees, these are almost almost always

manipulated in some way (see below). Trees are always planted in straight l ines adding

perspective and reinforcing the symmetry of the garden.

Statuary is often used in French Garden Design. Pavilions and 'foll ies' are often incorporated

too.

In the great French formal gardens there is almost always a terrace from where the garden and

its symettry can be seen from above

The use of Parterres, or Knot-gardens, In French Garden

Design

Parterres, or knot-gardens, are widelyused and generally made up of clipped box, lavender or rosemary.

The low clipped hedges are laid out in a symmetrical pattern, these can be quite intricate or assimple as four squares next to each other with a gravel path seperating them. Generally the moreintricate patterns will be close to the house or chateau and s impler patterns further away.


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For use in small gardens a simple pattern could be the best choice both for ease of maintenance(remember your hedging will need cu tting twice a year to keep the hedges the right size and niceand leafy.

At th ei r simp les t the pa rt er re s can be fi ll ed wi th co lo ur ed gra ve l or sand . Or th ey ca n be fi ll ed wi thbedding plants laid out in formal patterns within the hedging.Flowers are often a secondary interestin French Garden Design and can be limited to the use of a limited range of bedding plants insidethe parterres.

An other po ss ibi l it y is to us e the fo rm al pa rte rr e st ruct ur e bu t so ften it by pl an ti ng wi th an in fo rmaldisplay of plants and flowers. This approach is used in the parterres of the Chateau du Lude inNorth West France.

Plants and Trees to use in French Formal Design

T r e e s

Trees are planted in straight l ines and clipped to keep a perfect shape and size. They may be

formed into shapes to form topiary.

The trees used in the Gardens of Versaille were: hornbeam, beech, chestnut, elm and linden for themost part. Hornbeam and Beech are easy to prune and shape making them particularly good treesfor formal gardens.

H e d g e s

The clipped hedges are usually box, lavender, rosemary and occasionally santoline. Regulartrimming to stop them going ' leggy' and 'woody' is important.

P l a n t s

If you want to recreate a very traditional design then the colours should be limited to white, pink,blue and mauve as these were the only colours available in the 17th century when many of the greatFrench Formal gardens were created. Red, yellow and orange plants weren't brought to Europe until1730.

Bedding plants and bulbs are popular choices for parterres with for example, parterres fi l led withbulbs in formal patterns for spring flowering and then taken out and replaced with bedding plants forthe late-spring and summer.

Nowadays it is possible to fi l l with a more relaxed scheme as at the Chateau du Lude or the JardinPlumewhich has put a contemporary twist of the Formal Fr ench garden.
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V e g e t a b l e s

Many French Chateax have wonderful vegetable gardens with the vegetables laid out in patternsand parterres in the style of the ornamental formal gardens. The results are superb. The best andmost famous is at theChateau de Villandrywhich also has some stunning ornamental formalgardens.

History of French Garden Design

French Garden Design, Jardin laFranaise, devolopped from the Italian Renaissance gardens. The style arrived in France in the16th century and included symmetry, parterres and geometrical shapes for planting schemes.

The first important French garden was that at Chateau Vaux-le-Vicompte where the chateau wasdesigned at the same time as the gardens. Andre le Notre was commissioned to design the gardensand for the first t ime the chateau and the garden were perfectly integrated.

An dre Le No tr e went on to cr ea te th e ext ra ord inar yGardens of Versaille , the largest garden inEurope and the most splendid example of Fr ench garden design. The style was copied by nobilitythroughout France and, indeed, by some of the large aristocratic buildings of Europe too. Itspopularity continued until the introduction of the English Landscape Garden started the next gardenfashion trend.

Whereas French garden designers saw the g arden as an extension of the architecture and orderedthe garden into a series of rooms with walls created from hedges and stairs from water, the EnglishLandscape gardeners were inspired by paintings .

S o m e E x a m p l e s o f F r e n c h G a r d e n D e s i g n

Chateau d'Azay is French Garden Design at its simplest. The Gardens of Versaille and

th eGardens of Villandryare French gardens on a majestic scale. The Parc Maupassant de boisSavaryand the Gardens of theChateau de Lotte also use the French Garden Design style. For acontemporary take on French Garden design v isit theJardin Plume .

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This is one of my favourites. The summer gar den is a kind of modern knot garden with a very formallayout of clipped box in a square edged pattern. Each 'box' is then fi l led with a very natural planting
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of grasses and perennials but the colours are superb. Lots of golden yellow, deep red, burningoranges...

The overall mix of formal and informal, the somber green of the box and the jewel colours of theflowers is really superb. Favourite plants here are dahlias, crocosmias, heleniums, kniphofias and ofcourse grasses - giving the plumes the garden is named for.

Because of the strong structural element to the garden and the use of plants which r emain

interesting in the winter the garden is sti l l beautiful in the winter.

Masses of euphorbias and hellebores and many other plants mean that spring is wonderfully freshand verdant in the jardin plume .

Au tumn is my favour it e. Al l th e gr asse s and cimi fu gias ma ke the ba ckdro p to the as te rs andhelianthus etc a bit l ike a fir ework display. Magic.

M y g a r d e n v i s i t i n l a t e S e p t e m b e r :

The box hedges are fi l led with vibrantly coloured flowers, interspersed with grasses.

Meadow areas are mowed into regular squares adding formality to the informally swaying grasses.

The autumn garden was a joy when I visited the Jardin Plume in late September. Tje asters andgrasses were taller than me.


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Even the potager is full of f lowers.

Ad ded to all th is there is a fabu lo us ga rd en ce nt re where you can bu y mo st of th e pl an ts gro wn inthe garden.


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G a r d e n G u i d e :

Le Jardin Plume is open from Saturday 17 May. Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10h - 12h and 14h- 18h. Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays 14h - 18h. The garden centre is open the same hours butfrom 5 March to 1November.

Ad dress :

The Jardin Plume is situated 20km North-East of Rouen, between Rouen and Dieppe.

Le Jardin Plume

76116 Auzouville sur Ry

Tel: 02 35 23 00 01

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Potager garden

A potager is aFrenchterm for an ornamental vegetable or kitchen garden. The historical design precedent is from

theGardens of the French Renaissanceand BaroqueGarden la franaiseeras. Often flowers (edibleand non-

edible) and herbs are planted with the vegetables to enhance the garden's beauty. The goal is to make the function of

providing food aesthetically pleasing.

Plants are chosen as much for their functionality as for their color and form. Many are trained to grow upward. A well-

designed potager can provide food, cut flowers and herbs for the home with very little maintenance. Potagers can

disguise their function of providing for a home in a wide array of formsfrom the carefree style of thecottage

gardento the formality ofaknot garden.

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ParterreFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the gardening arrangement. For the theater seating arrangement, seetheater (structure).

For theater audience, seeParterre (theater audience).
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Kensington Palaceengraved byJan KipforBritannia Illustrata, 1707/8

The left hand side of the completely symmetrical parterre atWaddesdon Manor, England

A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or

tightly clippedhedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres

need not have any flowers at all. French parterres originated in 15th-centuryGardens of the French

Renaissance, such as theChateau of Versailles, and were elaborated out of 16th-century BaroqueGarden la

franaiseknot gardens, and reached a climax at the and its many European imitators, such as Kensington

Palace (illustration, right).
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Contents

[hide]

1 Examples

2 Development of the parterre

3 Revival of the parterre

o 3.1 Making of a modern parterre: gallery

4 Historical images

5 References

6 External links

[edit]Examples

At Kensington Palace, then a suburb of London, the planting of the parterres was byHenry Wise, whose

nursery was nearby atBrompton. In the engraving of 1707-1708, (illustration, right), the up-to-

dateBaroquedesigns of each section are clipped scrolling designs, symmetrical around a center, in low

hedging punctuated by trees formally clipped into cones; however, their traditional 17th century layout, a broad

central gravel walk dividing paired plats, each subdivided in four, appears to have survived from the Palace's

former (pre-1689) existence as Nottingham House. Subsidiary wings have subsidiary parterres, with no attempt

at overall integration.

The parterre at Cliveden from the terrace.
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The parterre atHanbury Hall, Worcestershire, viewed from a first floor window.

At Prince Eugene'sBelvedere Palace, Vienna, a sunken parterre before the facade that faced the city was

flanked in a traditional fashion with raised walks from which the pattern could best be appreciated. To either

side walls with busts on herm pedestals backed by young trees screen the parterre from the flanking garden

spaces. Formal baroque patterns have given way to symmetrical paired free scrollingrococoarabesques,

against the gravel ground. Little attempt seems to have been made to fit the framework to the shape of the

parterre. Beyond (in the shadowed near foreground) paired basins have central jets of water.

In the UK, modern parterres exist atTrereife Parkin Penzance (Cornwall),Birr Castlein Ireland, atDrumlanrig

CastleinDumfriesshireand atBodysgallen HallnearLlandudno. One of the largest in Britain is atClivedenin

Buckinghamshire; it consists of symmetrical wedge-shaped beds filled with catmint, santolina and senecio,

edged with box hedges and with sentinel pyramids of yew at the corners and altogether covers an area of four

acres.

Some early knot gardens have been covered over by lawn or other landscaping, but the original traces are still

visible as undulations in the present day landscape. An example of this phenomenon is the early 17th century

garden ofMuchalls CastleinScotland.

[edit]Development of the parterre

The parterre was developed in France byClaude Mollet, the founder of a dynasty of nurserymen-designers that

lasted deep into the 18th century. His inspiration in developing the 16th-century patterned compartimens

simple interlaces formed of herbs, either open and infilled with sand or closed and filled with flowers was thepainter Etienne du Prac, who returned from Italy to the chteau ofAnet, where he and Mollet were working.

About 1595 Mollet introduced compartment-patterned parterres to royal gardens atSaint-Germain-en-

LayeandFontainebleau; the fully developed scrolling embroidery-likeparterres en broderie appear for the first

time inAlexandre Francinis engraved views of the revised planting plans at Fontainebleau and Saint-Germain-

en-Laye in 1614[1].
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Modern Parterre atBirr Castle, Ireland

Clippedboxmet with resistance from garden patrons for its "naughtie smell" as the herbalistGervase

Markhamdescribed it. By 1638,Jacques Boyceaudescribed the range of designs in box a gardener should be

able to provide

"Parterres are the low embellishments of gardens, which have great grace, especially when seen from

an elevated position: they are made of borders of several shrubs and sub-shrubs of various colours,

fashioned in different manners, as compartments, foliage, embroideries (passements),

moresques,arabesques,grotesques,guilloches, rosettes, sunbursts (gloires), escutcheons, coats-of-

arms, monograms and emblems (devises)" Trait du iardinage selon les raisons de la nature et de

lart, pp 8182 (quoted by Laird)

By the 1630s, elaborateparterres de broderie appeared atWilton House, so magnificent that they were

engraved the only trace of them that remains. Parterres de pelouse orparterres de gazon refer to

cutwork parterres of low-growing herbs likecamomileas much as to the close-sythed grass.

An alley of compartimentis that which separates the squares of a parterre.

[edit]Revival of the parterre

Parterre gardening was swept away, beginning in England, by the naturalisticEnglish landscape garden,

beginning in the 1720s. Its revival coincided withNeo-Renaissancearchitecture, in the nineteenth-century

fashion forcarpet beddingwhich was realized by mass planting of non-hardy flowering annuals, set out

anew at the start of each season and providing the blocks of color that made up the design. Flat surfaces

were required, and a raised terrace from which to view the design, and so the parterre was reborn in a

transfigured style.

[edit]Making of a modern parterre: gallery
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Parterre beds laid out ready for planting, with paths gravelled. One half of a symmetrical design flanking a

path shown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Parterre1.JPG

garden, french

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