Category Archives: Garden Design

Gardens of the Château de Vullierens

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The gardens of Chateau Vullieren

The gardens of Chateau Vullierens have been influenced by the styles of several periods in garden history: Medieval, Baroque, Romantic and Modern

We are pleased to welcome the gardens of the Château de Vullierens to the Gardenvisit guide. Just inland from Lac Lemen (Lake Geneva) it looks south to the Alps and Mont Blanc. Four important styles of garden design have influenced the layout. When first built, as a strongly fortified house, it was set in a classic medieval walled enclosure. One can speculate that as with many medieval gardens, it was used for growing sweet smelling and medicinal herbs. Perhaps it had a turf seat and a rose bower in which the ladies of the house could enjoy the sun, do their embroidery and listen to minstrels.
When rebuilt, as a baroque style ‘Little Versailles’ the old uses are likely to have continued. The ladies and gentlemen of the house will have walked with family and guests on the elegant terrace, stopping to enjoy the sun and watch their children and pets play on the grass. In the nineteenth century, again following Europe-wide fashions, the gardens will have taken on more of a horticultural flavour and, to use English terms,  in a gardenesque and mixed styles.  In the mid-twentieth century Doreen Bovet, the owner’s American wife, began the fabulous iris collection.

Monty Don on the ‘Paradise Gardens’ of Islam

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Monty Don is my favourite TV garden presenter but watching his BBC2 series on “””Paradise Gardens”””” has been a mixed pleasure. He has the talents to be a good garden historian. But he does not have the time. So the BBC should involve more experts. On Islamic gardens (as they are often, if misleadingly called) the best source of reference is Islamic Gardens and Landscapes by D. Fairchild Ruggles. She argues, convincingly, that before the sixteenth century the gardens Monty Don has visited (at speed) were NOT conceived as Paradise Gardens. The concept of paradise was found in the Qur’an but was not applied to real world gardens until tomb gardens came to be made in Mughal India. Retrofitting the paradise concept to earlier gardens is a flight of fancy of a kind the BBC should spurn. It makes no more sense than would a discussion of motor vehicles in eighteenth century gardens or in Roman gardens.

Monty is stronger on the planting of Islamic Gardens and it was a pleasure to hear him draw attention to the British planting of the Taj Mahal Garden  and Humayun’s Tomb Garden. He, or his research assistants, had the good sense to consult local experts. A British viceroy did his disappointing best to convert the Taj Mahal garden to the Gardenesque Style of  Victorian England. ‘George Nathaniel Viscount Curzon was really a very superior person’.

RSPB Lodge Sandy Wildlife Garden

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Garden Finder entry for RSBP Lodge Garden


I don’t miss the Lodge Garden of the 1870s – because there is no reason to think its quality was exceptional. Nor do I miss the Lodge Garden of the 1930s, partly for the same reason and partly because the National Trust has made so many ‘improved Arts and Crafts’ gardens.

The RSBP Lodge bulding, near Sandy, was designed by Henry Clutton (above) for Arthur Wellesley Peel (below)

Photographers are able to find angles which make the Lodge Garden look National Trusty, which is the right thing to do near the house. But by taking a close look one can see that the RSBP has begun work on something more innovatory and more important. It is using its technical expertise to make a wildlife garden. There is every reason for the RSPB to know more about this and to do it an way that can be an inspiration to both amateur and professional gardeners. My suggestion is for the RSPB to make a garden that is beautiful, as well being habitat-rich. My video was taken in 2009 and I am sorry to criticise such a worthwhile effort. The Lodge Garden looks as though a group of conservation volunteers from a sixth-form college had been invited to have a bash at making a wildlife garden. There should now be a concentration on design quality.

Garden birds have been popular at least since the gardens of ancient China and ancient Rome

London has 13.2% of the UK’s population and the area of private gardens  in London  37,900 hectares. Gardens tend to be larger outside London so land devoted to gardens in the UK could be 300,000 ha. Comparing this with the area of the National Nature Reserves in the UK (94,400 hectares) it is obvious that the RSPB could do a lot for the UK’s bird population by creating a first class example of an Ornithological Garden for the Lodge. Birds were highly valued in ancient Chinese and Roman gardens.

Damien Hirst of Toddington Manor

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Is Damien Hirst furnishing Toddington Manor with a Young British Artist Garden? Born in 1965, he is now a now Middle Aged British Artist

Damien Hirst is the lord of Toddington Manor. The old manor house was drawn by Kip in the eighteenth century and rebuilt as a gothic revival mansion in the nineteenth century. Hirst uses the manor for his art collection and I hope he is making a YBA garden.

Beliefs, gardens, design and #GardenBeliefs

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Beliefs have led to the planting of Nelumbo nucifera the Sacred Lotus since ancient times

Beliefs have led to the planting of Nelumbo nucifera the Sacred Lotus since ancient times

Beliefs have always influenced garden design styles, just as they influence contemporary gardens. And  just as they will surely influence future gardens. I do not have a religion but I do believe in beliefs and in their importance for designers. Neil MacGregor’s radio series on Living with Gods is therefore of great interest to me. Taking objects and places as examples, MacGregor explains the beliefs that led to their creation. This is what I tried to do when writing histories of Asian, European and British garden design.  So when I can see a connections between what MacGregor say and the history of gardens I will blog and tweet about them using the hastag #GardenBeliefs. I am hoping he will devote a programme to Nelumbo nucifera the Sacred Lotus – but doubt it. It was a celebrated garden plant long before the Buddha made it a very famous garden plant as recorded in the story of the Flower Sermon:

Toward the end of his life, the Buddha took his disciples to a quiet pond for instruction. As they had done so many times before, the Buddha’s followers sat in a small circle around him, and waited for the teaching. But this time the Buddha had no words. He reached into the muck and pulled up a lotus flower. And he held it silently before them, its roots dripping mud and water. The disciples were greatly confused. Buddha quietly displayed the lotus to each of them. In turn, the disciples did their best to expound upon the meaning of the flower: what it symbollized, and how it fit into the body of Buddha’s teaching. When at last the Buddha came to his follower Mahakasyapa, the disciple suddenly understood. He smiled and began to laugh. Buddha handed the lotus to Mahakasyapa and began to speak. “What can be said I have said to you,” smiled the Buddha, “and what cannot be said, I have given to Mahakashyapa.”

Alan Watts a great interpreter of Buddhist ideas for westerners made a wise comment on contemporary religious ideas (he uses the term ‘faith’ where I  use ‘belief’):

The present phase of human thought and history … almost compels us to face reality with open minds, and you can only know God through an open mind just as you can only see the sky through a clear window. You will not see the sky if you have covered the glass with blue paint. But “religious” people who resist the scraping of the paint from the glass, who regard the scientific attitude with fear and mistrust, and confuse faith with clinging to certain ideas, are curiously ignorant of laws of the spiritual life which they might find in their own traditional records.

Seven restoration projects of garden history importance – two in Greenwich Park

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Historic garden restoration projects

A proposal for 7 historic garden restoration projects in the preface to the first edition of Tom Turner’s English Garden Design

I proposed 7 garden restoration projects in 1986, and reported on what had happened in 1998:

The Preface to the 1986 printed edition of this book made ‘ a personal plea for some restoration projects which would be of special historical value as examples of poorly represented styles’. The plea had no influence upon events but the following update may be of interest to readers: (1)  The semi-circular parterre at Hampton Court, known as the Fountain Garden, has not changed. But the nearby Privy Garden has been restored with the greatest possible care for historical accuracy. I believe this was an error of judgement: the Privy Garden is an unremarkable as a Baroque parterre but looked good in its picturesque 1986 condition. The Fountain Garden remains rather ugly but would have been very splendid – if restored in the manner of the Privy Garden. (2)  The Giant Steps in Greenwich Park have not been restored. The Royal Parks Agency commissioned a design for a Baroque water cascade on the site. It was opposed by the local people. I can see a strong case for restoring the original steps which would have been like Bridgeman’s theatre at Claremont Landscape Garden. Or one could make a respectable case for a new design on the site. But ‘restoring’ a cascade which never existed would have been illogical. (3)  The Leasowes is now run as a country park. (4)  Nothing has been done about the parterre at Melbourne Hall or the ornamental farm at Great Tew (5)  Gertrude Jekyll’s garden at Munstead Wood is, I am delighted to report, being restored.

It’s time for another update:

  1. The semi-circular parterre at Hampton Court has not been restored and the Privy Garden still lacks the aesthetic quality it had before it was restored
  2. ‘Restoration’ of the Giant Steps in Greenwich Park is under consideration and may well happen – I will do a blog post about this soon
  3. The Leasowes is still run as a country park and with little regard for the outstanding importance of William Shenstone’s conception
  4. Nothing has been done about the parterre at Melbourne Hall
  5. Nothing has been done about  the ferme ornée at Great Tew
  6. Good restoration work has been done at Munstead Wood and it is open to the public by appointment
  7. I suggested ‘some full-scale Gertrude Jekyll borders with colour schemes based on J.M.W. Turner’s colour theory’
The herbaceous border in Greenwich Park is not a national disgrace

The herbaceous border in Greenwich Park is not a national disgrace

With regard to the 7th suggestion, I was thinking about the long border in Greenwich Park but did not mention it because the Giant Steps seemed more important. In 2013, The Royal Parks appointed Chris Beardshaw to ‘completely redesign the border’. I have often admired his work at Chelsea and am sure he did a good job for Greenwich. But there are lessons to be learned:

  1. The quality of the long border is poor. This may because you can’t just ask an expert to design a herbaceous border. You need to expert to have responsibility for its management and review the design very frequently. It’s best to have the expert working on the border and thinking about it all the time. Is this plant doing too well? Why is that plant suffering? Would it be better if those two plants were not side by side? do those colours go together?
  2. The Royal Parks Agency (as it used to be) lacked expertise in the design and the design history of parks, gardens and landscapes. So they probably did a poor job in briefing Chris Beardshaw.
  3. The Royal Parks are really bad at involving volunteers in the management of parks and gardens. This is a tragic wasted opportunity for bringing in resources of mind and brain and involving the community.
Gertrude Jekyll's brilliant idea for the colour planning of herbaceous borders has never yet been deployed at the large scale and superb viewing conditions Greenwich Park could provide

Gertrude Jekyll’s brilliant idea for the colour planning of herbaceous borders has never yet been deployed at the large scale and superb viewing conditions Greenwich Park could provide