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A garden designer is someone who designs the plan and features of gardens, either as an amateur or professional. The compositional elements of garden design and landscape design are: terrain, water, planting, constructed elements and buildings, paving, site characteristics and genius loci, and the local climatic qualities.
Garden designers are skilled specialists dealing with master planning of landscapes and design of gardens, consulting with advice for clients, providing direction and supervision during construction, and the management of establishment and maintenance once the garden has been created. They are able to survey the site, and prepare drawings for the development of a garden from concepts to construction, and source the plant and building materials. Historically, many gardens have been designed by talented amateurs without formal training, and many others have been designed by people whose artistic or design training was not originally focused on gardens. The complexities in contemporary environmental design issues and technology increase the scope professional garden designers fill.
A wide range of design methods have been used by garden designers, depending partly on the historical period in which they worked and partly on the professional discipline with which they have the closest relationship. One can, for example, speak of an "architect's garden", "artist's garden" or a "plantsman's garden". Treating the subject historically, one can say that ancient gardens were likely to have been "drawn" directly on the ground, that Renaissance gardens were drawn on paper and that modern gardens are drawn on a computer. The design process always has an influence on the design product.
There tends to be a distinction between those designers who start with the plant palette and its needs, called garden design; and those designers who begin with consideration of the space and place-making to create architectural spaces and circulation routes with plants and other elements, called landscape design. Many famous gardens which contain myriad interesting plants can be incompletely planned as a whole and lack integrated composition. Also, many gardens which are well planned in overall design can lack the interests from planting detail. Some keen gardeners who are very knowledgeable about plants can be resistant to conceptualizing design. Some very competent designers and landscape architects have a meager amount of diverse botanical and horticultural knowledge and experience. A competent and talented garden designer can synthesize both needs to design and create beautiful and sustainable landscapes and gardens.
Historically, garden designers were trained under the apprentice system, such as André Le Nôtre with his father and Beatrix Farrand with Charles Sprague Sargent. Specialist university-level landscape planning and garden design courses were established in the twentieth century, generally attached to departments of agriculture, horticulture, or architecture. In the second half of the twentieth century many of these courses changed their scale of focus and their nomenclature, from garden design to landscape architecture. Towards the end of the twentieth century a number of BA garden design curricula were established with the emphasis more on design than horticulture. Horticultural colleges, in ornamental horticulture departments, and architecture colleges, in landscape architecture departments, continue to train contemporary garden designers.
Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits, and herbs, are grown for consumption, for use as dyes, or for medicinal or cosmetic use.
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is control. The garden can incorporate both natural and artificial materials.
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for construction and human use, investigation of existing social, ecological, and soil conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of other interventions that will produce desired outcomes.
The early history of gardening is largely entangled with the history of agriculture, with gardens that were mainly ornamental generally the preserve of the elite until quite recent times. Smaller gardens generally had being a kitchen garden as their first priority, as is still often the case.
Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and garden design.
Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. Most professional garden designers have some training in horticulture and the principles of design. Some are also landscape architects, a more formal level of training that usually requires an advanced degree and often a state license. Amateur gardeners may also attain a high level of experience from extensive hours working in their own gardens, through casual study, serious study in Master gardener programs, or by joining gardening clubs.
John Claudius Loudon was a Scottish botanist, garden designer and author. He was the first to use the term arboretum in writing to refer to a garden of plants, especially trees, collected for the purpose of scientific study. He was married to Jane Webb, a fellow horticulturalist, and author of science-fiction, fantasy, horror, and gothic stories.
Andrew Jackson Downing was an American landscape designer, horticulturist, writer, prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine (1846–1852). Downing is considered to be a founder of American landscape architecture.
The cottage garden is a distinct style that uses informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, it depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure. Homely and functional gardens connected to cottages go back centuries, but their stylized reinvention occurred in 1870s England, as a reaction to the more structured, rigorously maintained estate gardens with their formal designs and mass plantings of greenhouse annuals.
Historic garden conservation is a specialised type of historic preservation and conservation or restoration concerned with historical and landmark gardens and designed landscapes.
The Landscape Institute (LI) is a UK based professional body for the landscape profession. Its membership includes landscape architects, urban designers, landscape planners, landscape scientists and landscape managers. The LI also has a category for academic members.
Ellen Biddle Shipman was an American landscape architect known for her formal gardens and lush planting style. Along with Beatrix Farrand and Marian Cruger Coffin, she dictated the style of the time and strongly influenced landscape design as a member of the first generation to break into the largely male occupation.
Frank Albert Waugh was an American landscape architect whose career focused upon recreational uses of national forests, the production of a highly natural style of landscape design, and the implementation of ecology as a basis for choices in landscape design. He essentially pioneered the role of the landscape architect as an integral part of national forest design and development through such projects as the Mount Hood Scenic Byway and the Bryce Canyon scenic roadway. His ideas spread via his diverse writings, including Recreation Uses in the National Forests and The Natural Style in Landscape Gardening. He also wrote prolifically about education, agriculture, and social issues in such works as The Agricultural College and Rural Improvement.
A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby.
The Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture is the shorthand name for a school that was founded in Groton, Massachusetts in 1901 for women to be trained in landscape architecture and horticulture. Under its original name of Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture, Gardening, and Horticulture for Women, the college was one of the first in the world to open the profession to women. In 1915 it was renamed the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women, and in 1945 it was absorbed into the Rhode Island School of Design as the Lowthorpe Department of Landscape Architecture.
The G59 – 1st Swiss Horticulture Exhibition was the first of two Swiss horticulture exhibitions up until now. It took place from April 25 to October 11, 1959, in Zurich and covered an area of about 37 acres on the right and left banks of lower Lake Zurich. The two separate halves of the exposition were connected by commuter ferries and a specially created cable car.
Plantify.co.uk is an online plant shop based in Windsor, Berkshire (UK) that sells a wide variety of herbaceous and perennial plants. The plant shop supplies over 3150 plants sourced from small British growers and hosts a Plant Finder encyclopedia and free garden design tool.
Foodscaping is a modern term for the practice of integrating edible plants into ornamental landscapes. It is also referred to as edible landscaping and has been described as a crossbreed between landscaping and farming. As an ideology, foodscaping aims to show that edible plants are not only consumable but can also be appreciated for their aesthetic qualities. Foodscaping spaces are seen as multi-functional landscapes which are visually attractive and also provide edible returns. Foodscaping is a great way to provide fresh food in an affordable way.
Gardening in Scotland, the design of planned spaces set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature in Scotland began in the Middle Ages.
John Andrew Brookes, MBE was a garden and landscape designer. He started designing gardens and landscapes in the late 1950s and designed thousands of gardens. He also taught and lectured about horticulture, landscape and interior design.
