English gardens, or irregular, landscape - this is the direction in gardening and park art. A trend arose, as the name implies, in England and replaced the regular or French direction. Gardens made in a regular style require space so that the visitor can merge with nature as much as possible or even get lost in the garden.
The history of the flow in landscape design
In the history of the formation of the irregular style there are three important stages. The first lasted from 1006 to 1500. At that time, the main task of such a garden is to provide its owner with plant foods. The founders are considered to be monks who set up gardens around monasteries and grew vegetables, fruits and medicinal herbs there. The servants of the Lord created beautiful flower beds from shrubs and flowers.
At the same time, when Henry VIII ruled in England, great attention was paid to gardening. In the XV century, preference was given to symmetry. A hundred years later, flowers and group plantings began to appear in English gardens, they began to figuredly cut trees, built alleys and arches woven from the branches of plants. This period is called the Tudor era.
Already in the XVII century, gardening began to be considered a characteristic feature of all the inhabitants of England. This love was instilled by the Huguenot Protestants who fled from Holland. They brought into the country many plants, golden rain, nasturtiums, a tulip tree and others.
In 1632, the first botanical garden of England (Oxford) appeared. And after almost 5 years, a similar garden appears in Edinburgh. When maritime trade developed, the British began to grow exotic plants, erecting greenhouses in their gardens.
Already in the XVIII century, England was considered the ancestor of the style, although it can be said with confidence that this is still a direction developed over the centuries, which has absorbed better that could be borrowed from strangers.
Style features and basic elements
An English-style garden is a carefully arranged symmetrical line, always a neat look. The simplest example is square-trimmed hedges, broken flower beds with clear lines or fences. Trees and bushes are necessarily planted in a certain pattern, always trimmed lawns and lawns.
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 one cannot make one’s own corrections to such a garden, however, the basic principles should be unchanged.
Well thought out 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 quite limited:
Terrace | It must be sprinkled with gravel or paved with other natural materials. From here, a general view of the entire garden should open. The tradition of terracing gardens came to England from Persian gardening, for example, the same Hanging Gardens of Babylon. |
Bush cutting | For curly haircuts, evergreens are used, which should have small needles or foliage. These elements came in an irregular style from the Hellenistic world. |
Sculptures | The statue may depict a person or an animal. |
Grove | A formal composition of trees, but must be present at least five identical species, planted in a line or in a checkerboard pattern. Paths in groves are usually laid out with gravel. |
Parterre | It is usually installed in the upper part of the garden, on which flower beds are planted in a frame of stones that are laid out symmetrically. |
Wooded Theater | It is arranged in the wooded part of the garden, decorated with columns and statues, and can be created in the form of an ordinary lawn, which includes complex figures from plants. |
Pergola | Usually this is a passage, can connect the pavilion and the front door to the main building. Consists of an open lattice or intersecting beams that are braided by a vine. |
Pavilion | A small building, which is being built near the main housing, where they 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 should be in everything. All shades and colors should merge into a single pictorial line. The dominant color should be green, and a more calm shade, acting as a counterweight, must be added to bright. For example, yellow must be diluted with orange, and blue with purple. When choosing plants and flowers in the garden, you need to choose pure and traditional shades, you can say old-fashioned colors.
Seasonality
It is very important that the appearance of the garden changes seasonally. So that with the onset of spring, spring plants bloom, and in summer - summer plants and so on. Thus, the effect of constancy is created.
Roses
Without the "queen" of flowers, landscaping in the English style will not work. The best for planting are those with strong aroma. You can use climbing varieties of roses, bush.
Varietal rose hips are often used as hedges. The flowerbeds use classic types - tea hybrids and florinbundy.
Accessories
The English style necessarily involves the placement of accents in the form of garden sculptures and fountains. Let it be a figure of a woman surrounded by climbing roses or lighting fixtures along the perimeter of the track. The main thing is that all these objects are combined with the surrounding vegetation and look like aesthetic perfection.
Care and individual approach
Perhaps the most important rule of how to create an English garden is constant and thorough care. It will not work to create a landscape in this style if there is no love for gardening and time. The plants will have to be monitored every day, pruned branches, cleaned from dried leaves, mow the lawn and water the flowers. English style is not for lazy people.
Each plant requires some care, and this will have to be considered.
Where to begin
Do-it-yourself English garden in the country house is not so difficult to create, even if a piece of land consists of several hundred square meters. First of all, you need to choose a territory, the more the better. This style involves open space. In no case should you use artificial materials. If the paths, then not of cement, but of natural stones, sawn trees. The paths should not be smooth, but meander, so that after each new turn a new, unique view of the garden opens.
When choosing trees, pay attention to varieties that do not grow tall, very well if they have any 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 "knock out" of the general landscape, that is, they do not emphasize. To do this, you can use the climbing plants that decorate the building. You can artificially create the effect of antiquity on the walls.
Try to create an artificial pond, best with a protrusion from which water will freely fall. If the plot 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 by sector. Garden furniture can be painted in bright colors, a style that allows. For example, a shop may 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 first hand the existing parks or at least see their photos.
One of the most popular and largest parks in an irrational style is located in Munich. Its total area is 4.17 square kilometers. Created it back in 1792. The founder was landscape architect Skel Friedrich. This is the exact opposite of French-style parks; it is one of the first public parks in Europe. Under vegetation, 1.3 square kilometers are occupied, under water bodies 0.16 square kilometers. km and under glades and meadows - 1.86 square meters. km For walks there are many paths (with a total area of 66 kilometers), for horseback riding - 12 km. About 50 species of birds are nesting in the park. About 4 million people visit this place every year, and about 70 tons of garbage are collected annually.
The most visited attractions include:
- full-flowing Aisbach creek;
- Schwabinger Bach Creek;
- Kleinhessenloe Lake;
- Chinese tower, folly structure 25 meters high;
- rotunda Monopter;
- Japanese tea house;
- Monument to the founder of Skel.
Another famous garden is Stourhead Park, England. The park is made in a classic English landscape style and appeared thanks to Henry Hoar 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 followed: no path should be like 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 canal. On the territory there is a palace, many bridges and fountains.