One way to impose one's will upon nature is by constraining the plants in one's landscape or garden design to conform to a layout that has the kind of geometric precision discussed on Page 1. The natural landscape, by contrast, is rather chaotic, from an artistic standpoint: nothing is even, there are lots of rough edges, and one type of plant grows willy-nilly right next to another, regardless of proportion or other garden design considerations.
By the very definition of garden design, we work to improve upon this arrangement when we engage in landscaping work. But the geometric style, or what is better known as "formal garden design," goes beyond mere improvement: one might characterize it as improvement "with an attitude." Georgene Bramlage provides excellent photos on her garden design site both of what I mean by a layout with "geometric shapes" and of the garden design style that opposes it.
In formal garden design, content becomes subservient to form. That is, nature supplies the plants (the content), but we apply such rigid guidelines in their arrangement (the form) that most of the attention is drawn to the form. Our own handiwork becomes the star of the show, while the plants play merely supporting roles. The plants chosen to support such a composition traditionally have been -- predictably -- the ones that are easiest to work with.
One plant that conforms well to a pattern of geometric patterns is boxwood: boxwood shrubs can easily be molded into well-behaved hedges that conform to whatever form we wish to impose upon them, be it a circle, straight line, etc. In formal gardens a series of carefully arranged and maintained boxwood hedges can be the whole garden: it is not a style much given to variety, nor do flowers assume a central role.
The Romans, those practical pupils of the Greeks, have left us in their literature an early example of this use of boxwood hedges to impose unity on the chaotic natural landscape. The example is provided by Pliny the Younger (General Letters, Part VII, Letter LII, To Domitius Apollinaris), describing the garden design of his own estate in Tuscany. Pliny speaks of trimmed boxwood hedges expertly deployed to partition off segments of the landscape in a precise manner. In addition, boxwood was sculpted into topiaries depicting animals -- a further assertion of mastery over nature (turning a plant into an animal, as it were!).
As Europe transitioned from Roman rule to the medieval period, the wealth, technical expertise and culture that were the prerequisites for an estate such as Pliny's were sadly wanting. But the tight structure of formal garden design was at least passed on in the form of the knot garden style employed in medieval monastery gardens. Renaissance Italy brought back formal garden design on the grand scale, and the reign of Louis XIV witnessed the emergence of the classical French garden at Versailles -- perhaps the pinnacle of formal garden design.
Kirk Johnson explains how the formal garden design style finally met its match -- with the rise of English landscape garden design in the eighteenth century. Johnson cites English poet Alexander Pope as an instigator for an informal garden design style. "In an essay on gardening in the Guardian (1713), he [Pope] urged a return to the 'amiable simplicity of unadorned nature' in place of the formal garden," writes Johnson. "And in his Epistle to Burlington he proclaimed what was to become the cardinal rule for the English landscape style," Johnson continues, quoting Pope's cardinal rule: "In all, let nature never be forgot.... Consult the genius of the place".
Continue on to Page 3 to learn more about English landscape garden design, plus where the American lawn fits into all this....
