Gardenvisit.com The Landscape Guide

*Mixed Style 1850

See Style Chart

Use: The Gardenesque taste for plant collecting developed into a wider enthusiasm for collecting styles garden design. Forming the collection became a hobby, not unlike collecting books, paintings, porcelain, roses or suits of armour. The collection gave both visual and intellectual pleasure and helped one’s imagination to envisage historically and geographically remote areas. As with the landscape style, the areas near the dwelling were used for domestic pleasure. Servants did the physical work. The owners would take tea, play summer games and admire the collections. The name for the style comes from Edward Kemp. It describes the dominant stylistic idea of the Victorian period: eclectiic borrowings from historical periods, habitats and geogrphical regions. The planting design was often Gardenesque.

Form: Towards the end of his career, Humphry Repton argued that there is no more absurdity in collecting styles in a garden than books in a library or pictures in a gallery. This led to a vogue for American, Chinese, Japanese, Italian and other eclectic gardens. Victorian gardens came to be characterised by their mixed collections of areas laid out in different styles. As the century drew on, the 'Italian' style came to be the most popular. The diagram shows the style as it was used in suburban gardens. In large parks, there was scope for more extensive collections. In Britain there was a special fondness for Italian gardens and in France for restorations of the High Baroque style. Note: the diagram does not represent the plan form of large estates laid out according to the ideas behind the mixed style.

Alton Towers, Beeckestijn, Biddulph Grange Garden, Biltmore Estate, Branitz, Carmen de los Martires, Central Park, Chatsworth, Crystal Palace Park, Cypress Gardens(FL), Disneyland Paris, Drummond Castle Gardens, Giverny, Fondation Claude Monet, Grand Hotel, Hearst Castle Gardens, Horticultural Demonstration Gardens, Huntington Botanical Gardens, Insel Mainau, Kasteeltuinen Arcen, Longue Vue Gardens, Longwood Gardens, Monasterio de Piedra, Muskau, Nemours Gardens, Parc del Laberint, Barcelona, Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Park Wilhelma, Stuttgart, Quinta de Monserrate, Real Jardin Botanico, Schlossgarten Ludwigsburg, Schlosspark Linderhof, Sonnenberg Gardens, Tivoli Garden, Twickel, Villa Palmieri, Weldheim, Wilhelmshohe Bergpark, Winterthur Museum Garden and Library,