French Garden Style and Design

We get the word “horticulture” from the Latin word, “hortus”, which means “garden”, and “cultura”, which means “cultivation”. Gardening is an art, and as with all art forms, there are a number of styles to choose from.

It was in the 17th and 18th centuries that for the first time the traditional French garden style was developed during the Baroque and Rococo periods. The gardens of the era were majestic exhibitions of power and riches constructed by royalty and aristocrats for the purpose of impressing guests. You will find that traditional French garden style is very formal, they are in fact inspired by the ancient classical gardens. Spanning level ground, these geometrically shaped gardens are very well planned out in regards to their design. A common characteristic of such gardens are man-made terraces. There are also elaborately designed stairs that connect one terrace to another. French gardens often feature large water pools which provide reflective properties and are easily built given the flat landscape. Here you will find a list of the main components of traditional, formal, French garden design.

* Yards are contained of square frames and constantly shuddered by neat, squared bushes

* Flowerbeds are also geometrical in shape rectangular, oval or circular.

* Parterres are an important feature of formal French gardens. These are vast elaborate geometric patterns created on the ground using colored dirt, stones and gravel or colored flowers. Parterres are often lined with boxwood, lavender, or rosemary. Parterres de broderies or rather, embroidery parterres, are magnificently elaborate. Visitors can view parterres from garden terraces.

* Water features are mostly canals and large, flat pools. Water fountains are also important, but are usually engine-operated.

* Allees, meaning axes or rides, is the term used for the garden walks or pathways, bordered by trees or neatly clipped hedges that provided the framework of the French garden style. A fountain or accenting garden ornament of some kind is the usual destination of such straight pathways.

* French Garden Ornaments: In French garden designs, you will find a lot of statues, columns, trellises, sundials, birdbaths and more. Symmetrical placement occurs with these objects.

* Plants: The planting design is often based on color. Pastel colors are used predominantly in French gardens with touches of yellow and red, and a little lilac and blue. Ideally, gardeners should choose plants that bloom all year round.

* Primarily French in origin, and available as an optional feature, Orangerie is a large glass-enclosed room in the garden where you’ll find lemon, lime, and orange trees blooming during the cold winter months.

* Herb gardens are often included in traditional French gardens. The neat French garden style usually includes separate areas for a fruit garden, a rose garden and sometimes a herb garden too. The herb gardens are another feature of the garden and are not just herb patches. Paving is used in a specific pattern a chessboard pattern or a circular pattern, laid out like the spokes of a wheel. Seats are often placed in the center or in a corner of herb gardens. Common French herbs include lavender, rosemary, sage, marjoram, thyme, and sweet bay.

A famous example of the traditional French formal garden style described above is the Versailles Gardens located just outside Paris. King Louis IV hired landscape architect Andr Le Ntre to create the Versailles Gardens, in 1661. Versailles’s western side features gardens spanning 800 hectares or 400 acres. Not only do these gardens feature many expensive ornaments, they also boast carefully cared for lawns and numerous blooming flowers. The gardens’ most fascinating feature are their 1,400 fountains. The garden was watered with water from the Seine River which was supplied by a pumping system. Still, there was never enough water to run all the fountains at once. As King Louis would enter the garden, the fountains would start. These days their hours of operation are restricted to Sundays.

Not going to France any time soon? You can still visit a traditional French garden just by stopping by the Conservatory Garden, located in the North side of Central Park in New York City.

Although the traditional formal garden style developed in France influenced garden designers throughout the world, French gardens are by no means all traditional in style. France has many less formal gardens, including the Giverney garden overflowing with blooming flowers as shown in Monet’s beautiful paintings.