The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Landscape Gardening
The Architectural Style
The evident harmony of arrangement between the house and surrounding landscape is what first strikes one in Italian landscape architecture,—the design as a whole, including gardens terraces, groves, and their necessary surroundings and embellishments, it being clear that no one of these component parts was ever considered independently, the architect of the house being also the architect of the garden and the rest of the villa.
Charles A. Platt.
A number of terms, all equally clear and useful, have been used for this well-defined style of gardening. We need to notice three,—architectural, formal and Italian. Of these the first is best for our purposes, especially, if architecture is understood in the broadest sense to include all the exterior accessories of buildings, to which the work of the architect may rightfully extend. Columns, obelisks, arches, fountains, statues and groups of statuary, and all similar structures whatsoever, are in this sense included within the common range of architecture and architectural gardening. Indeed, the earliest and some of the best examples of this style were planned and executed by professional architects,—men who did not claim to be gardeners at all. The term "formal" has its obvious signification. It is perfectly legitimate, and in many places highly serviceable. This method is also widely and properly known as the Italian style, having received its best development in Italy.
The architectural style is diametrically opposed at all points to the extreme natural style. It is opposite in methods and in effects; though this is no reason why a person of artistic taste may not find full satisfaction in either.
The most modern tendency is to admit the architectural, the natural and all other possible styles of gardening, to equal consideration; to recognize that each may claim advantages in special situations; and to choose from among different styles, in a frame of mind quite free from prejudice, the one best suited to any given circumstances of environment and demand. The time was,—and recently,—when English and American gardeners were very much prejudiced against geometrical methods of all sorts. As a result, their attempted naturalistic effects were forced into situations where grievous failure alone could meet them, but where a less partisan good taste might have achieved beautiful and satisfying results through the discredited methods.
Formal gardening has made great progress in America during the last 50 years. Jt is now better understood, more justly appreciated and much better practiced. The formal gardens more recently made are of better design and are more clearly fitted to their surroundings. Jt is now seen, in fact, that many small, rectangular plots—as for example within a quadrangle of buildings, or at the side of a residence on a small lot—may be more conveniently treated in simple formal style than in any affected "natural" style. This plain, straightforward sort of formal gardening, in particular, has a real place and is rapidly advancing in popularity.
