- Formal garden
A formal garden in the Western gardening tradition [In
Japanese garden ing, theZen garden of rocks, moss and raked gravel is a wholly separate concept of equally formal garden, without axial symmetry or other geometries.] is a neat and orderedgarden laid out in carefully planned geometric and symmetric lines. Lawns and hedges in a formal garden must always be kept neatly clipped.Tree s,shrub s,subshrub s and other foliage are carefully arranged, shaped and continually trimmed. A French garden is a specific kind of formal garden, laid out in the manner ofAndré Le Nôtre ; it is centered on the façade of a building, with radiatingavenue s and paths of gravel, lawns,parterre s and pools ("bassins") of reflective water enclosed in geometric shapes by stone coping, withfountain s and sculpture.The simplest formal garden would be a box-trimmed hedge lining or enclosing a carefully laid out
flowerbed or garden bed of simple geometric shape, such as aknot garden . The most elaborate formal gardens contain pathways, statuary, fountains and beds on differing levels.The French formal garden had its origins in sixteenth-century Italian gardens such as
Boboli Gardens behindPalazzo Pitti , Florence, laid out by a series of architect-designers for the Grand DuchessEleanor of Toledo . The formalparterre of clipped evergreens was transferred to France, where some of the earliest formal parterres were those laid out atAnet .Claude Mollet , the founder of a dynasty of nurserymen-designers that lasted deep into the 18th century, introduced the formal parterre.Features of a formal garden:
*terrace
*topiary
*statuary
*hedge
*bosquet
*parterre
*sylvan theater
*pergola
*pavilion
*landscaping
*garden design Formal gardens were a feature of the
stately homes of England from the introduction of the parterre atWilton House in the 1630s until such geometries were swept away by the naturalistic landscape gardens of the 1730s, but perhaps the best-known example of a formal garden of gravel, stone, water, turf and trees with sculpture is at Versailles, which is actually many different gardens, laid out byAndré Le Nôtre . In the early eighteenth century, the publication ofDezallier d'Argenville , " La théorie et la pratique du jardinage" (1709) was translated into English and German, and was the central document for the later formal gardens of Continental Europe.Formal gardening in the French manner was reintroduced at the turn of the twentieth century:Beatrix Farrand 's formal gardens atDumbarton Oaks , Washington DC andAchille Duchêne 's restored water parterre atBlenheim Palace are examples of the modern formal garden.New York City ’sCentral Park features a formal garden in the Conservatory Garden at the northern sector.*Blomfield, Reginald Theodore. "The Formal Garden in England." [http://books.google.com/books?id=Bac1AAAAMAAJ&dq=%22formal+garden%22&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=2uxJYnhBbp&sig=8JpTZHpCkjMPkbXoBmwkI6mHSn0#PPR8,M1 Google Books]
* [http://www.nps.gov/archive/sajh/Formal_Garden.htm San Juan]Notes
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