See Style Chart
Use: Using one’s hands to care for a garden came to be seen as a pleasurable activity. This is the first style in the history of European garden design where the owner was a significant contributor to the maintenance. Less wealthy people must always have worked their own land, and the rich undertook some dilettante activities, but the hard physical work had always been done by specialist gardeners and domestic staff. The Arts and Crafts Movement celebration of the purity of craftsmanship and honesty of manual toil led to a progressive involvement of owners in garden work.
Form: Towards the end of the nineteenth century, artists and designers came to despise styles borrowed from other countries and historical periods - usually without knowledge of the design principles which had inspired the originals. Led by Ruskin and Morris, they sought a return to the principles of art and to the craft skills on which, it was believed, a genuine style must rest. Designers drew inspiration from the fine arts, especially in the handling of shapes and colours. Arts and Crafts gardens generally have a clear demarcation between an enclosed area, with geometrical beds, near the dwelling and a naturalistic 'wild garden'. Discernment is exercised in the use of good plants, fine building materials and traditional crafts.
Afton Villa, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, Bodnant Garden, Chateau de Courance, Chateau de Hautefort, Chateau de Villandry, Crathes Castle Garden, Dumbarton Oaks, Filoli, Great Dixter, Harkness Memorial State Park, Hidcote Manor Garden, Jardi de Santa Clothilde, Kiftsgate Court Gardens, Kykuit, The Rockefeller Estate, La Mortella (on Ischia), Les Bois des Moutiers, Museo de Sorolla, Madrid, Old Westbury Gardens, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, San Michele, Sissinghurst Garden, Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, Wave Hill,
