English gardens, or irregular, landscape gardens are a trend in garden and park art. A current arose, as the name implies, in England and replaced the regular or French direction. Regular style gardens require space to allow the visitor to blend in with nature as much as possible or even get lost in the garden.
The history of the flow in landscape design
There are three important stages in the history of the formation of the irregular style. The first lasted from 1006 to 1500. At that time, the main task of such a garden was to provide its owner with plant food. The founders are considered to be monks who planted gardens around the monasteries and grew vegetables, fruits and medicinal herbs there. The servants of the Lord created beautiful beds of shrubs and flowers.
In the same period, when Henry VIII ruled England, great attention began to be paid to garden art. In the 15th century preferencegiven symmetry. Already a hundred years later, flowers and group plantings began to appear in English gardens, trees began to be trimmed, alleys were built and vaults were woven from plant branches. This period is called the Tudor era.
Already in the 17th century, gardening began to be considered a characteristic feature of all inhabitants of England. This love was instilled by Huguenot Protestants who fled Holland. They brought many plants, golden rain, nasturtiums, tulip tree and others to the country.
In 1632, the first botanical garden in England (Oxford) appears. And almost 5 years later, a similar garden appeared in Edinburgh. As maritime trade developed, the British began to grow exotic plants by building greenhouses in their gardens.
Already in the 18th century, England is considered the ancestor of the style, although it is safe to say that this is still a trend developed over the centuries, which absorbed the best that could be borrowed from strangers.
Style features and basic elements
The English-style garden is carefully arranged symmetrical lines, always looking neat. The simplest example is square-cut hedges, broken flower beds with clear lines or fences. Trees and bushes must be planted according to a certain pattern, lawns and lawns are always trimmed.
English landscape design is a sense of proportion in all elements and nobility, a special balance of functionality and carefully thought out little things. But this does not mean at all that you cannot make your own adjustments to such a garden, however, the basicprinciples must remain the same.
Elaborate structure
A mandatory attribute of English gardens is a walking area surrounded by thematic sectors that you want to admire endlessly. However, the list of such zones is rather limited:
| Terrace | It must be sprinkled with gravel or paved with other natural materials. From here you should have a general view of the entire garden. The tradition of terracing gardens came to England from Persian gardening, for example, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. |
| Bush trimming |
For curly haircuts, evergreens are used, which should have small needles or foliage. These elements came to the irregular style from the Hellenistic world. |
| Sculptures | The statue can represent a person or an animal. |
| Grove | Formal composition of trees, but there must be at least five identical varieties planted in a line or in a checkerboard pattern. The paths in the groves are usually laid out with gravel. |
| Parterre | Usually installed at the top of the garden, where flower beds are planted framed by stones that are laid out symmetrically. |
| The Wooded Theater | Settled in the wooded part of the garden, decorated with columns and statues, and can be created inthe form of an ordinary lawn, which includes complex figures of plants. |
| Pergola | Usually this is a passage that can connect the pavilion and the front door to the main building. Consists of an open lattice or criss-cross beams that are woven over with vines. |
| Pavilion | A small building that is being built near the main residence, where people come for rest and relaxation. It can be a surface structure or artificially created ruins. |
Color balance
The harmony of color in all elements of the English garden is the foundation. Balance must be in everything. All shades and colors should merge into a single picturesque line. The dominant color should be green, and a calmer shade must be added to the bright ones, acting as a counterweight. For example, yellow must be diluted with orange, and blue with purple. When choosing plants and flowers for the garden, choose pure and traditional shades, one might say old-fashioned colors.
Seasonality
It is very important that the appearance of the garden changed according to the season. So that spring plants bloom with the onset of spring, and summer plants bloom in summer, and so on. This creates a permanent effect.
Roses
Without the "queen" of flowers, landscape design in the English style will not work. Austin with a strong aroma are best suited for landing. You can use climbing varieties of roses, bush.
Oftenvarietal wild roses are used as hedges. Classic types are used in the flowerbeds - tea hybrids and florinbunds.
Accessories
English style necessarily involves placing accents in the form of garden sculptures and fountains. Let it be a figure of a woman surrounded by climbing roses or lighting fixtures around the perimeter of the path. The main thing is that all these items are combined with the surrounding vegetation and look like aesthetic perfection.
Care & Personal Care
Perhaps the most important rule of how to create an English garden is constant and meticulous care. It will not be possible to create a landscape in this style if there is no love for gardening and time. You will have to monitor the plants every day, cut the branches, clean the dried leaves, mow the lawn and water the flowers. English style is not for lazy people.
Each plant requires a certain care, and this will have to be taken into account.
Where to start
It is not so difficult to create an English garden in the country with your own hands, even if the plot of land consists of several acres. First of all, you need to choose a territory, the more the better. This style is spacious. Under no circumstances should artificial materials be used. If the paths, then not from cement, but from natural stones, sawn trees. The paths should not be smooth, but meander so that every new turn opensnew, unique garden view.
When choosing trees, pay attention to varieties that will not grow tall, it is very good if they have some flaws. Thus, it will be possible to achieve a special charm. If you plant plants in groups, then it is better to do this in several tiers and always with different flowering periods so that the garden changes its appearance every season.
The rules of the English garden require that all buildings and structures on the site do not “stand out” from the general landscape, that is, they are not emphasized. To do this, you can use climbing plants that decorate buildings. You can artificially create an antique effect on the walls.
Try to create an artificial reservoir, preferably with a ledge from which water will fall freely. If the site is uneven, then this is even better for landscape style. Do not forget about the hedge, you can use forged elements to delimit the site into sectors. Garden furniture can be painted in bright colors, style allows it. For example, a shop can be red, but better with a slight touch of antiquity.
World famous landscape gardens
To understand the history of the English garden and the main features, it is best to see the existing parks firsthand, or at least look at their photographs.
One of the most popular and largest parks in the irrational style is located in Munich. Its total area is 4.17 square kilometers. It was created back in 1792. The founder was the landscape architect Shkel Friedrich. It's the exact oppositeFrench-style parks, it is one of the first public parks in Europe. 1.3 square kilometers are occupied by vegetation, 0.16 square kilometers by water bodies. km and under glades and meadows - 1.86 sq. km. There are many paths for walking (with a total area of 66 kilometers), for horseback riding - 12 km. About 50 species of birds nest in the park. This place is visited annually by about 4 million people, and about 70 tons of garbage are collected annually.
The most visited attractions include:
- full-flowing Eisbach stream;
- Schwabingerbach stream;
- Lake Kleinhessenlohe;
- Chinese Tower, a 25-metre high folly structure;
- Monopter rotunda;
- Japanese tea house;
- monument to the founder of Shkel.
Another famous garden is Stourhead Park, England. The park is made in the classic English landscape style and appeared thanks to Henry Hoare II. After the estate was inherited, Henry renamed it and after a trip to Italy decided to create a park here. The main principle that Henry adhered to was that no path should be similar to another. A temple and other buildings were erected on the territory.
But the inhabitants of Russia can not go so far, but go to Peterhof (St. Petersburg). It was founded by Catherine II, and the architect was Giacomo Quarenghi. The total area under the garden is 173.4 hectares, by the way, this is the largest park in the northern capital of Russia. There are magnificent plants, streams and a canal. On the territory there is a palace, many bridges and fountains.
