Formal english garden

Among the picturesque fells and valleys of the Lake District national park, Angharad Moran discovers a host of glorious historic estate gardens that have been lovingly cultivated and charming visitors for centuries

English gardens consist of hardscaping and formal hedging to instill a sense of order, with less formal planting borders as a counterbalance. Include some or all of these English garden elements to create compelling visual interest and timeless appeal.

An English garden, also known as an English landscape garden, is characterized by its natural, pastoral aesthetic, often designed to resemble an ideal rural landscape. Key features include sweeping lawns, gently rolling hills, serpentine lakes, and groves of strategically placed trees and shrubs. Unlike the formal, symmetrical French garden, the English garden emphasizes natural beauty and harmonious integration with the surrounding landscape.

Beautiful parterre garden with boxwood and snowball viburnum.

Some varieties flower only once, while others are in bloom over a much longer period, usually with a late flush at the end of summer.

Garden

Yesterday in a little break-from-winter look at garden styles we took a look at modern gardens. Now we’re going in what you would think is the opposite direction, to formal gardens, but really these two styles share more in common than you might think. F O R M A L G A R D E N S Even if you’re […]

“The owner’s first mixed border was developed in the pergola garden with the ornamental Bradford pear hedge as a backdrop. Her favorite colors–pink, fuchsia, lavender, and blue–can be seen in…