Landscaping III (Landscaping Styles)

Learn to Choose the Right Style for the Right Garden

Gardens come in all sorts of styles. They can reflect a sense of formality or informality; a warmth or a coolness, or a particular culture or environment.

This course explores the many styles of garden that can be found across the globe; and the ways in which a garden designer can recreate gardens that reflect a particular style.

The art of gardening is diverse, and gardens around the world will reflect respective cultures from the countries they originate in. The Chinese and Japanese have developed their own traditional style, as have the Europeans and Middle Eastern cultures.

Over more recent times; new and different styles of gardening have developed in Australia, America and even South America, to reflect the influences of culture, climate, art and fashion.

Be creative in your approach to design

Take this comprehensive course to learn about a broad range of garden styles. Find out how to use colour and texture to create different ambiences, the role of water in garden design, how history has influenced design, and what makes formal gardens, oriental gardens, Mediterranean gardens, and other styles.

Discover how to create modern gardens or how to incorporate different elements into an eclectic garden. Learn how to choose a style to suit the location.

Lesson Structure

There are 10 lessons in this course:

1. Creating the Mood
   • Active vs Passive
   • Simple vs. complex
   • Movement vs. Static
   • Light vs. Shade
   • Managing Light and Shade
   • Increasing or Reducing Light
   • Plants that Thrive in Shade
   • Garden Lighting
   • Other Factors that Affect Mood
   • What Do You Want in a Garden
   • Personality in the Garden
   • Keeping it in Scale
   • Colour and the Garden
   • Using Coloured Statuary
   • Other Coloured Surfaces
   • Psychological Effects of Colours
   • Water in the Garden
   • Hot Plants
   • Making a Garden Appear Cooler
   • Site Analysis
   • Macro Design
   • Designing a Garden Room
2. Historic Gardens
   • Introduction
   • Roman Gardens
   • Chinese Gardens
   • Landscape Designers
   • Historic Considerations
   • Other Types of Gardens; formal, informal, natural, resort, permaculture, herb, rose, cottage
   • Cottage Garden Design
   • Cottage Garden Features
   • Plants in a Cottage Garden
   • Federation Gardens
   • Edwardian Gardens
3. Formal Gardens
   • Introduction
   • Design Elements of Formal Gardens
   • Types of Formal Garden; Avenue, hedged beds, etc
   • Planting in Formal Gardens
   • Traditional Ornamentation; Sundials, Weather vanes, Bird Baths
   • Traditional Furniture; seats, pots, arbors, arches, gazebos
   • Formal Courtyards
4. Oriental Gardens
   • Introduction
   • Chinese Gardens
   • Japanese Gardens
   • Types of Japanese Gardens: Hill and Pond, Dry Landscape, Tea Garden, Stroll Garden, Courtyard, Classic Rock Garden
   • Japanese Garden Features; Tori, Shishi-odishi, Moss Garden, Bamboo Fence, Bridges
   • Bonsai
   • Ornamental Grasses
5. Middle Eastern and Spanish Style
   • Introduction
   • Features of Moorish Gardens
   • Sense of Enclosure
   • Mexican Style
   • Mexican Planting Schemes
   • Use of Coloured Gravel
6. Mediterranean Gardens
   • Introduction
   • Features of Mediterranean Gardens
   • Regional Differences
   • Colours
   • Built Landscape
   • Plant Material
   • Use of Paint
   • Veranda Gardens
   • Making the Most of Small Spaces
   • Microclimates
7. Coastal Gardens
   • Coastal Garden Features
   • Temperature, Humidity and Wind
   • Windbreaks
   • Salt and Soil Conditions
   • Coastal Plants
8. Modern Gardens
   • Introduction
   • Technology in the garden; screens, lights, water features, music
   • Maintenance
   • Architecture; shapes and angles, colour, sculpture
   • Courtyards
   • Inner City Gardens
   • Types of Inner City Gardens
   • Future Trends
9. Eclectic Gardens
   • Creating an Eclectic Garden
   • Using Garden Ornaments in an Eclectic Garden
   • Plants
   • Living Art
   • Topiary
   • Hedges
   • Pleaching
   • Miniature Gardens
   • Trough Gardens
   • Pebble Gardens
   • Art Gardens
   • Public Gardens
10. Other Styles
    • Dryland Gardens
    • The Desert Landscape
    • Xeriscapes
    • Australian Bush Garden
    • Cacti and Succulent Gardens
    • Minimalist Landscapes
    • Permaculture
    • Rainforest Gardens
    • Tropical Style Gardens
    • Bird Attracting Gardens
    • Bulb Gardens

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Explain the use of colour, light, shade, temperature, water, foliage and other elements in establishing the mood of a garden.
• Describe gardens from different places and periods in history; and in doing so explain how to renovate and/or recreate gardens that reflect the style of different historic periods.
• Apply the principles, design features and elements that make up a formal garden.
• Discuss cultural and historical traditions that contributed to the development and style of the oriental garden.
• Discuss cultural and historical traditions that have contributed to the development and style of the Middle Eastern and Spanish garden.
• Discuss the historic, climatic and cultural influences which have contributed to the style of Mediterranean gardens.
• Discuss design styles of coastal gardens
• Explain the limitations and potential of coastal sites when preparing a landscape design.
• Discuss contemporary garden design styles and possible future trends in garden design.
• Identify the range of diversity possible in garden design.
• Identify characteristics of different garden styles including eclectic, dryland, permaculture, rainforest and tropical garden styles.
• Design different styles of gardens.

What You Will Do

• Visit different gardens to assess the mood of each garden. Take time to observe each garden and try to identify the different elements that contribute to the garden mood.
• Observe how colour has been used in the three different gardens. Observe the colours of both plants and hard surfaces, and the way the colours have been combined.
• Visit an historic garden in your area. Identify different features that make this an historic garden.
• Visit a formal garden in your area. Identify features that make this a formal garden.
• Visit an oriental garden either in person or by research.
• Search for more information on gardens that reflect the styles.
• Make notes of anything you find which is interesting and could be used in development of a Mediterranean style of garden in the locality in which you live.
• Visit (make a virtual or real visit) a coastal region near where you live (coast of a lake or sea) and observe the type of plants that are growing near the seashore. Also observe the plants and design elements of nearby gardens. (If you are unable to visit a coastal region, use descriptions of coastal sites and gardens from books, magazines and the internet.)
• Visit a modern courtyard garden (if there is no suitable garden in your area, use a garden described in a book, magazine or on the internet). Identify and describe the elements that make this a ‘modern’ garden. How has the designer overcome the restrictions of the site to create a feeling of spaciousness?
• Search through telephone books, magazines and the internet to find suppliers of materials suitable for eclectic gardens such as pots, sundials, pebbles, statues, wrought iron, tiles, gazebos, seats, wind chimes, etc. Visit as many suppliers as possible and inspect these materials. Find out about their cost, availability and longevity.
• Depending upon where you live, visit a dryland, permaculture, tropical, or rainforest garden in your area (if there is no suitable garden in your area, use a garden described in a book, magazine or on the internet). Identify and describe the elements that determine the style of this garden.

Increase the Scope of What You Can Create

• An eclectic garden does not have to have a mixture of styles in the one area - try dividing the garden up into separate 'rooms' each having their own style. For instance, an archway towards the rear of a formal garden area might lead into a Chinese style contemplative garden which could be adjacent to a Spanish style garden, and so forth.
• If using features from different styled gardens alongside one another you may have to give more thought to positioning. For instance, if you were to use the aforementioned Greek statue and Chinese lantern together, then positioning the lantern where it hangs among the foliage of an overhanging tree bough and is slightly obscured would work better than hanging it directly over the statue where the contrasting cultural styles would be more blatant. • Don't push the boundaries of taste too far - it may be momentarily amusing to place a plastic garden gnome next to a stone replica of the Venus de Milo, but to leave it there would be quite vulgar. Likewise, don't plant red and white roses together - for some it symbolises blood and bandages and emanated from the First World War. Just give a little thought to where you place your garden components and you won't go too far wrong.
• If you want to stay on the safe side - try mixing styles that have some similarities. For instance, you could stick with elements from Greek, Roman, French and formal styles, or might like to mix rainforest, natural, and cottage garden aspects. Similarly, Spanish, Mexican and Middle Eastern styles would blend together well.
• Experiment - if at first something seems right, but then after several days or weeks it just doesn't look good anymore - remove it or change its position. A small statue of a woman alongside a cascade might look overwhelmed and lost, but if you were to reposition it under a tree at the back of the garden it might now look perfectly in perspective, drawing the eye towards the boundary and beyond - providing a sense of depth.
• Be careful with colour - the eclectic garden knows no bounds when it comes to colour but try not to overdo it. In a cottage garden the mixed colours of flowers works well because they are generally fairly subtle colours set against predominantly green foliage. However, if you were to mix lots of different coloured pots, for instance, then the clash of colours could become too overwhelming. Instead, you can mix styles by choosing colours that work well together. For example, traditional style dull grey faux lead planters will work alongside unpainted Greek style stone urns, and also with Mediterranean style earthy coloured terracotta pots.
• Don't overcrowd - the same principles of overcrowding apply to the eclectic garden as to other garden styles. Just because you are not imposing limits on what aspects of different garden styles you can include, it does not mean that you should overfill your garden. Try to limit the number of features you have so that the garden does not take on the feeling of a junkyard.