Category Archives: Garden travel and tours

Huphry Repton, the Schlosspark Klein-Glienicke and landscape architecture

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The garden court at Schlosspark Klein-Glienicke has a distinctly Reptonian character

The garden court at Schlosspark Klein-Glienicke has a distinctly Reptonian character

Humphry Repton’s influenced landscape and garden design outside as well as inside the UK. I see his books as England’s most important contribution to the theory of garden design and landscape architecture. They were lavishly produced, opulently published and sought after by collectors. Foreign travel was enormously hard in his lifetime, not least because of the Napoleonic wars, and many people found out about the English style of making gardens from books. Among them was Peter Joseph Lenné.

The Klein-Glienicke garden has a domain of art near the house, a Brownian park and distant views of lakes and forests

The Klein-Glienicke garden has a domain of art near the house, a Brownian park and distant views of lakes and forests

The Schlosspark Klein-Glienicke in Potsdam Berlin was designed by Lenné with help from Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau.  The latter invited Humphry’s son,  John Adey Repton, to Potsdam. Though remembered as an architect, and not known to have helped with the Glienicke design, John was familiar with his father’s theories.  The Glienicke layout shows clear evidence of Repton’s Landscape Style.

The Lion Fountain

The Lion Fountain

Glienicke was planned with a Beautiful area near the house and a transition to a Picturesque park (in the Serpentine Style) and a Sublime background (the Potsdam lakes and forests).

After their republication by John Claudius London, Humphry Repton’s works had a wide influence on the English-speaking world and were a starting point for Frederick Law Olmsted’s practice and the development of landscape architecture as an organised profession. Repton also influenced UK town and country planning with the principles that:

  • cities should be compact
  • agricultural land should be protected from urban sprawl
  • national parks and natural parks should be protected from development

The Wallenstein Garden was made by one of Europe’s greatest military commanders

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The Wallenstein Garden

The Wallenstein Garden

The garden is beautiful and secluded. But the Wallenstein Garden in the Czech Republic was made by  a cold, egotistical and autocratic man. In his plays about Albrecht von Wallenstein, Friedrich Schiller wrote that

  • Life is earnest, art is gay.
  • Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

The design style of the garden is somewhere between Early and High Baroque on our Garden History Style Chart.


wallenstein_garden

Stourhead is a great English landscape garden

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Stourhead Landscape Garden has a good claim to being ‘England’s greatest landscape garden’. Though changed, as all gardens must change, it retains much of its eighteenth century character. Tour operators are right to make it a priority in English garden tours.

Henry Hoare’s aim was to recreate the landscape of antiquity. Not having too clear an idea of what it looked like, he turned to the great  landscape painters of Italy, including Claude Lorrain and Nicholas Poussin.

In the Great Gardens postcard, below and at the start of the video, the plan of Stourhead is on the left and the garden design style diagram it represents is on the right. The Gardenvisit.com style chart shows this style in its historic position. Stourhead owes much to Augustan ideas.

Great English Garden postcard of Stourhead, showing the garden plan and the garden design style

Great English Garden postcard of Stourhead, showing the garden plan and the garden design style

The Promenade Plantee predates the Highline

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The Promenade Plantee is older than the Highline and is spatially more varied

The Promenade Plantee is older than the Highline and is spatially more varied

I wonder why the Highline in New York City has become much more famous than its older predecessor, the Promenade Plantee in Paris. I don’t think it’s a consequence of the design, the location or the scenic quality.  Could the explanation be an application of triumphal American marketing to the Highline?  Or does the Highline have more oomph? Paris is fast becoming a cycling city and the Promenade offers a great ride.

See also: Garden Tours in France

Not too late for a garden tour to the Italian lakes

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Villa Balbianello on Lake Como in Italy

Villa Balbianello on Lake Como in Italy

Still desperate for a garden tour in 2017? I recommend the Italian Lakes. Villa Del Balbianello is on a wooded peninsula projecting into Lake Como. It was built in 1787, on the site of a Fransiscan monastery, by Cardinal Angelo Durini. Steps lead from the landing stage into a terraced garden with a beautiful loggia. It was renovated by the American General Butler Amos and given to the Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano (FAI) in 1988. This guidebook to the gardens of the Italian Lakes is also recommended.

Steven Desmond Gardens of the Italian Lakes – book review by Tom Turner

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gardens Italian lakes

Marianne Majerus’ photographs of the gardens of the Italian lakes are delightful

The Italian Lakes are a fantastic place for gardens, comparable with Kashmir. They have great scenery, wonderful light, a terrific climate and extremely wealthy residents who have been building luxurious villas and gardens since Roman times. Though only a small proportion of the total, many villas and gardens are open for visits. Even better, you can travel to them by public ferries, which is so much better than driving long distances on exhausting roads. The book describes 17 gardens.
Of its type, this is a very good book. Readable, well-illustrated and and informative. If you are wondering about a visit to the gardens of the Italian lakes, this is the book to buy. The last chapter has maps and details of garden opening times ‘at the time of writing’. Garden owners do tend to be conservative about opening times but, in case they change, you can find links to the the garden websites below.
But what type of book is this? More than anything, it puts me in mind of a set of articles which might have been written for a glossy magazine. Steven Desmond, the author, ‘is a gardener’ who leads garden tours and ‘advises on the conservation of historic gardens and writes for Country Life.’
He is good on general chit-chat and sets the gardens in the context of the personalities and historical contexts in which the gardens were formed. The plants and planting are very well handled, picking out notable examples but keeping horticulture in balance with other considerations.
The things I miss in the book are garden plans and an art-historical account of the styles represented in the gardens. The terms Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Romantic etc are used but without any information either about their characteristics or about how they apply to gardens (see our Style Guide for further information on design styles and please contact us if you offer tours of the gardens of the Italian lakes to add to our Garden Tours section on Italy.

Gardens of the Italian Lakes by Steven Desmond was published by Frances Lincoln in May 2016

 

GARDEN TOUR AROUND LAKE MAGGIORE

1 . ISOLA BELLA Open from late March to late October, daily 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. www.isoleborromee.it/en/home/isola_bella
2. ISOLA MADRE The garden is open from late March to late October, daily 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. www.isoleborromee.it/en/home/isole_madre
3. VILLA TARANTO The garden is open from late March to the end of October, daily 8.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.; during October, the garden closes at 4 p.m. www.villataranto.it/en
4. VILLA SAN REMIGIO See http://www.visitstresa.com/Villa_San_Remigio.htm and http://en.villasanremigio.it/
5. VILLA DELLA PORTA Bozzolo The garden is open from March to November, from Wednesday to Sunday 10 am to 6 pm http://eng.fondoambiente.it/beni/villa-della-porta-bozzolo-fai-properties.asp
6. VILLA CICOGNA MAZZONI The garden is open for guided visits on Sundays and public holidays from April to October, 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon, and 2.30 p.m. to 7 p.m. www.villacicognamozzoni.it
7. VILLA PALLAVICINO The garden is open from mid-March to the end of October, daily 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., with the last entry at 5 p.m. http://www.parcozoopallavicino.it/index-en.html
8. ALPINIA The garden is open from mid-April to mid-October, daily 9.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. http://en.lagomaggiore.net/24/giardino-alpinia.htm
9. BOTANIC GARDEN OF THE BRISSAGO ISLANDS The garden is open from late March to late October, daily 9am to 6pm. http://www.isolebrissago.ch/en

GARDEN TOUR AROUND LAKE COMO

10. VILLA MELZI The garden is open from late March to the end of October, daily 9.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. www.giardinidivillamelzi.it
11. VILLA CARLOTTA The garden is open from early April to mid-October, daily 9 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. (the ticket office closes at 6 p.m) http://www.villacarlotta.it/
12. VILLA DEL BALBIANELLO The garden is open from mid-March to mid-November, daily except Mondays and Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with last entry at 5.15 p.m. http://eng.fondoambiente.it/beni/villa-del-balbianello-fai-properties.asp?
13. VILLA SOMMI PICENARDI The garden is open by prior arrangement www.villasommipicenardi.it/english
14. VILLA SERBELLONI Tours are available from mid-March to the end of October, daily except Mondays, at 11 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. www.bellagiolakecomo.com/bellagio-lake-como-italy I POI-points-ofinterest/villa-serbelloni-garden
15. VILLA CIPRESSI Access to the hotel garden by ticket from reception: http://www.hotelvillacipressi.it/en/
16. VILLA MONASTERO The garden is open from March to the end of October, daily 9.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. www.villamonastero.eu/index.php
17. VILLA D’ESTE The garden can be visited by arrangement with the hotel: www.villadeste.com/en/13/home.aspx

Most of the gardens are beside the lakes and easily accessible by ferry

Most of the gardens are beside the lakes and easily accessible by ferry