Garden Design
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Threatening Gardens
Many homeowners feel threatened when one of their neighbors landscapes their front yard in an unconventional manner. This is understandable, since for most people their home is their major investment.
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The Viselaya Foundation
From September 10th 2005 through October 7th 2005 the Viselaya foundation will be hosting a juried exhibition of figurative sculpture in a beautiful landscape garden near Boston, Massachusetts.
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Contrast - Part 1
I continue my series of articles about the principles of design with an article about contrast.
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Principles of Design - Rhythm
Of all the principles of design, most people will probably find rhythm the easiest to understand. This is because rhythm in the visual arts is very closely related to rhythm in music.
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Flower Shows
I decided to go a bit off topic this month and write about floral design rather than garden design.
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Beverley Nichols
Timber Press has republished the Merry Hall trilogy. They are among the most delightful books about gardening ever written.
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Bizarre Conifers
I have a fondness for conifers with unusual growth patterns. This article is about placing these unusual plants in gardens.
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An Unusual Approach
Garden designer Mark Laurence has a rather unusual approach to designing gardens.
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My Rose Garden
I can't really maintain my garden during the month of June, but that hasn't stopped me from planting roses.
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Herbaceous Borders - Part One
When nineteenth century gardeners began to create herbaceous borders, they thought that they were reviving seventeenth century gardening practices.
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The Gardenesque Style
In the December 1832 issue of his Gardener’s Magazine, John Claudius Loudon proposed a new style which he called “gardenesque".
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Melancholy Pleasures
If you wanted to introduce melancholy into your garden, how would you go about it?
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Garden Hermits
During the second half of the 18th century, no English landscape garden was complete without a hermitage.
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My Neglected Garden
I tend to neglect my garden during the months of June and July, so I am learning what parts of my garden need to be maintained and what parts can take neglect.
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Kids Gardens
In her articles about gardening with children, Linda Mazar wrote about how to instill a love of gardens in children by encouraging their creativity.
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Gardens Are For People
Gardens Are For People, by Thomas Church, was first published in 1955 and introduced the concept that gardens are for people to live in, not just places to grow plants.
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Rosemary Verey's Garden
The late Rosemary Verey created a garden at Barnsley House which is highy eclectic, but she managed to tie together many unrelated elements into a unified garden.
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Vita Sackville-West
Vita Sackville-West (1892 - 1962), always wanted to be a great poet, but today she is remembered as a great gardener and garden writer.
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Middleton Place
Middleton Place, near Charleston, South Carolina, features the oldest landscape garden in North America. Begun in 1741, its construction took 100 slaves a decade to complete.
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Sissinghurst Castle - Part Eighteen
During World War II, the famous flower beds at Sissinghurst Castle were planted with vegetables and the army drove tanks along the banks of the lake.
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A Basilica Garden
Garden designer Hugh O’Connell has returned to the architectural roots of Italian Renaissance gardens, and instead of imitating earlier gardens, he has created a garden that is both classically beautiful and strikingly original.
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Sissinghurst Castle - Part Fifteen
The curved wall at the western end of Sissinghurst's rose garden raises the garden to the status of a garden room of the finest pedigree.
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A Place of Refuge
A garden can be a place of refuge when the world outside gets ugly.
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Sissinghurst Castle - Part Nine
Many people probably find the Tower Lawn to be one of the least interesting parts of the garden at Sissinghurst Castle, but it serves an important purpose.
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Sissinghurst Castle - Part Five
The enclosed garden next to the Priest's House was one of the earliest parts of sissinghurst Castle to be developed as a garden.
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Sissinghurst Castle - Part Two
Sissinghurst was not the first garden to be created by Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson. this article is about their gardening background before they bought Sissinghurst Castle.
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Sissinghurst Castle - Part One
This is the first in a series of articles about the gardens of Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, England. This article gives a brief history of the castle before it was bought by Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson.
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Pergolas and Arbors
Some practical thoughts to consider before you construct an arbor or pergola.
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The Three Friends of Winter
If your garden seems uninteresting during the winter months, you might consider growing the Three Friends of Winter.
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Gardens of Moorish Spain
While much of Europe was still in the dark ages, Moorish rulers in Spain were creating gardens of breathtaking sophistication.
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The Mehtab Bagh
Archeologists have uncovered the site of the Mehtab Bagh, on the opposite side of the river from the Taj Mahal.
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The Garden of Apollo
Louis XIV was known as "The Sun King". This article is about sculptural groups in the gardens of Versailles which depict the god Apollo.
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Katsura Rikyu
Take an online tour of the Katsura Imperial Villa, near Kyoto, Japan.
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Eels in Roman Gardens
I expect that many of you will be surprised to learn that the fish which ancient Roman authors mention most often as being kept in fishponds are eels.
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Piscinae Salsae (Saltwater Fishponds)
For years I have been curious about the saltwater fishponds of ancient Rome, so I was thrilled to discover James Higgenbotham’s book Pisicinae. This book explains how Roman fishponds were constructed and how they functioned.
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Decorative Rapes
Garden ornaments which depict violence towards women and children.
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Vigeland Sculpture Park
The Vigeland Sculpture Park in Oslo, Norway is a great work of landscape architecture which displays 212 sculptures in a very effective manner.
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Gardens of Nudes - Part Six
The conclusion of a six part series of articles about nude statues in the formal gardens of Europe. This article is mainly about statues in the gardens of Versailles.
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Gardens of Nudes - Part One
Nude statues are often displayed in the formal gardens of Europe. This is the first in a series of articles about those statues.
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Edible Landscaping
The current fashion for edible landscapes dates from the publication in 1982 of “The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping”, by Rosalind Creasy.
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The Petit Trianon
This is the first article in a three part series about Marie Antoinette's garden at the Petit Trianon.
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The Garden of the Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal has often been called the greatest monument to love. The architecture of the tomb is so beautiful that many visitors don't pay much attention to the garden.
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Déduit's Garden
The Roman de la Rose is a poem by Guillaume de Lorris which was written in the thirteenth century. The ideal garden which he describes in this poem shows how deeply Medieval people loved both nature and gardens.
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Christmas at Shore Acres
This will be the thirteenth Christmas that the garden at Shore Acres Park is decorated with over 200,000 lights.
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Gardens of the Late Renaissance
While the 1527 sack of Rome is often seen as the end of the High Renaissance, most of the great Renaissance gardens were created after 1527.
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High Renaissance Gardens
The High Renaissance didn't produce many important gardens, but two gardens of this period had a powerful influence on European gardens.
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Koi Ponds
I have had koi in my garden's ponds for over 15 years. This article is a practical guide to designing koi ponds.
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Paradise Gardens
Islamic gardeners kept the Western tradition of garden design alive while Western Europe was going through what has often been called the "Dark Ages".They also developed their own unique garden styles.
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Goethe and Gardens
Like many romantics, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832) preferred untamed nature over gardens.
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Picturesque Gardens
The picturesque movement of the late eighteenth century created gardens with a wilder beauty than the smooth lawns of the classic English landscape garden.
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Jardins Anglo-Chinois
The jardin anglo-chinois grew out of the English landscape style, but it was just a little bit different.
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Giochi d’Acqua
The next time that people visit your garden, suddenly turn on the sprinklers and watch your guests try to escape.
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Dwarf Rhododendrons
Many people think of rhododendrons as woodland plants, but most dwarf rhododendrons belong in alpine or rock gardens.
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Native Plants
Traditional Japanese gardens have a lot to teach us about designing with native plants.
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Bible Gardens
A Bible or Biblical garden is a garden which is composed using plants which are mentioned in the Old and New Testaments. This article features my original design for a Bible garden.
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Green Gardens
Many people think of green gardens as being a bit unusual, but they are really very traditional.
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The Roots of Japanese Gardens
The influence of Chinese gardens on early Japanese gardens, and some basic differences between traditional Japanese and Chinese gardens.
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Sublime Gardens
Romantics have attempted to create gardens which are intended to evoke feelings of melancholy, fear, and even sublime awe.
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Unity In Garden Design
The summation of a series of articles on unity in garden design written over the past 6 months.
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Unity - Part 6 - Form
This is the sixth in a series about how to create a garden that is a unified work of art.
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Unity - Part 4 - Line
This is the fourth in a series about how to create a garden that is a unified work of art.
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