Tom Turner

the principles of
GARDEN DESIGN
Gardenvisit.com
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Contents
1. Vitruvius and the Genius Loci
2. Garden functions
3. Construction & Planting
4. Materials
5. Construction
6. Planting design
7. Planting design principles
8. Aesthetics/Delight
9. Beliefs about nature
10. The principles of abstract design
11. Historic Design Styles
12. Design themes
13. Gardening with ideas
14. The art of shadows
15. Weather, climate and gardens
16. Weathervanes and gardens
17. The materials of garden design
18. Sculpture as a theme
19. Conservation gardens
20. Further information
21. Image credits

© Tom Turner 2008. Published by Gardenvisit.com.

All rights reserved worldwide under the Berne Con-
vention, including resale rights.
ISBN 978-0-9542306-2-3

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 A good example of a bad design

This garden is neither useful, nor beautiful, nor well made.

It is ugly. It spurns the principles of garden design.The dry fountain stands in ‘crazy paving’. The
planting is tasteless. The stone is the only interesting feature - but it is badly laid and looks as
if it came from overseas. A field of wheat, a paddock or a wildflower meadow, would be better
uses for the land: more beautiful, more useful, more sustainable.

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The Principles of Garden Design
Gardens should be useful, wellmade and beautiful
A useful garden
A well-made & well-tended garden
A beautiful garden
The principles of design have not changed
since ancient times - though they are often re-
formulated for different categories of design.
Buildings, for example are said to require
Commodity (usefulness), Firmness (good
construction) and Delight (aesthetic appeal).
Shoes ought to be Comfortable, Durable and
Stylish. Gardens and designed landscapes
should be Useful, Well-made and Beautiful -
but can have many uses, they can be made in
different ways and they can have many kinds
of beauty. Some gardens and landscapes are
planned entirely for use and others entirely for
beauty - just as some shoes are for work and
others for parties.
This eBook reviews the principles of design
as they apply to gardens - but the same
principles apply to the sister arts of landscape
architecture and urban design. It is a notable
fact that when cities are ‘designed’, instead
of ‘just’ evolving, the best results have been
achieved by applying principles which were
developed in gardens to the layout of cities.
The list of examples includes Isfahan, Paris,
Georgian London and Washington DC.
This is because the difficult art of designing
outdoor space can be learned and practiced in
gardens.
Paris as a garden design
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This garden is a home for the Genius of the Place (Genius Loci)
A Roman grotto, at Ninfeo di Egeria
An English grotto, at Painshill
Vitruvius and the Genius Loci
The ancient principles of design were
formulated by a Roman author, Vitruvius
Pollio. He applied them to architecture, clocks,
harbours, siege engines and other 3-D objects.
Had he given more attention to outdoor space,
Vitruvius might have added another Roman
concept to the list of design principles: the
Genius Loci. For garden design, this phrase
is translated into English as ‘the Genius of the
Place’ and used to describe the local factors
which could and should influence a design.
Alexander Pope expressed the principle in
verse:
Consult the genius of the place in all;
That tells the waters or to rise, or fall;
Or helps th’ ambitious hill the heav’ns to scale
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;
Calls in the country, catches opening glades,
Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades,
Now breaks, or now directs, th’ intending lines;
Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
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 Offices in London, Tokyo and New York: they all look the same - but gardens can be different
Following the Genius Loci principle, we
should design gardens with specific regard
to local topography, views, sun, wind, rain,
soils, geology, existing vegetation and a
host of other geographical, cultural and
historical factors. It is a key principle and it is
increasingly neglected in the modern world.
It is perhaps the case that because mobile
phones and office blocks can be the same in
London, Tokyo and New York, people think the
same policy can be applied to gardens. To a
Hyde Park, London small extent, it can. But who wants a typical
London garden to be indistinguishable from a
typical garden in Tokyo or New York? Not me.
And I believe the Genius Loci prefers gardens,
to differ according to whether they are made
on sand, chalk or gravel, in hot climates,
cold climates, wet climates and dry climates.
Mother Nature evolved different plants for
different habitats. We should make different
gardens

Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park, New York State Soils and habitats must influence gardens

Kiyosumi, Tokyo

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Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man was inspired by the
quotation from Vitruvius, below
The navel is naturally placed in the centre
of the human body, and, if in a man lying
with his face upward, and his hands and
feet extended, from his navel as the cen-
tre, a circle be described, it will touch his
fingers and toes. It is not alone by a circle,
that the human body is thus circumscribed,
as may be seen by placing it within a
square. For measuring from the feet to
the crown of the head, and then across
the arms fully extended, we find the latter
measure equal to the former; so that lines
at right angles to each other, enclosing the
figure, will form a square
Though he does not name the Genius Loci
Vitruvius was well aware of the principle
and explains how it applies to the landscape
architecture of towns:
The town being fortified, the next step is
the apportionment of house lots within
the wall and the laying out of streets and
alleys with regard to climatic conditions.
They will be properly laid out if foresight is
employed to exclude the winds from the
alleys. Cold winds are disagreeable, hot
winds enervating, moist winds unhealthy.
We must, therefore, avoid mistakes in
this matter and beware of the common
experience of many communities. For
example, Mytilene in the island of Lesbos
is a town built with magnificence and
good taste, but its position shows a lack
of foresight. In that community when the
wind is south, the people fall ill; when it
is northwest, it sets them coughing; with
a north wind they do indeed recover but
cannot stand about in the alleys and streets,
owing to the severe cold.
The Romans believed that each family has
a ‘Genius’ which is passes on from one
generation to the next. This idea also applies
to towns and gardens. Just as history and
geography influence design on the land, so
the first garden made on a site will influence
its successors. Like families and societies,
gardens become, in the words of Edmund
Burke, ‘a partnership… between those who
are living, those who are dead, and those who
are to be born’. Roman gardens had shrines
dedicated to the ‘genius’ of the family.
Vitruvius’ three design principles will be
discussed in the traditional sequence: Utilitas
(Function), Firmitas (Construction) and
Venustas (Beauty). The order is sensible:
we should think first about what the space is
for, then how to make it and then about its
aesthetic qualities. But one could begin with
any of the three principles and the choice
relates to garden types.
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 Garden functions
Garden functions can be associated with
historical garden types. The oldest-known are
the Temple Garden, the Domestic Garden,
the Palace Garden and the Hunting Park. If
the first person to make an enclosed outdoor
space was both a tribal chief and a religious
leader, then his garden could have had all
three functions. But we can consider them
separately.

A garden shrine in Pompeii The Domestic Garden is and was an

enclosed outdoor space, partly roofed and
partly cultivated. In the Middle Ages this
became a Cottage Garden. The poor cottar
used leaves and branches for his roof. His
walls were built with mud, sticks and stones.
His garden was a place to grow food and
herbs. Most gardens in most countries at most
points in history have been domestic in this
sense but many have also had some of the
characteristics of Palace and Temple gardens.
Vegetable gardening
Palaces and Palace Gardens were used to
protect their inhabitants and grow food but
also became symbols of power and places
of beauty. The development of organized
societies allowed food to be obtained from
elsewhere and palace gardens to become
pleasure gardens. This remains the primary
use of gardens belonging to rich families
in the modern world. They are places for
pleasure, luxury and display, sometimes with a
secondary role in the production of food.

Temple Gardens were made for religious

Domestic garden purposes. Some of the ancient gods were
ancestors. Their earthly lives had ended
but they required homes and gardens in
which to enjoy their after-lives. Other gods,
including the sun and moon, were known
from their powers and worshiped in sanctuary
enclosures. Ancient Egypt has examples
of temple gardens and temple sanctuaries.
Symbolic and beautiful, the most altogether
splendid example is the Temple of Queen
Hatshepsut. We can view Senemut as the first

Palace garden (Hearst Castle)

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The temple garden at Sigiriya
Garden wildlife
Chengde was a great hunting park
Richmond Park, London, was for hunting
great garden designer known to history and
the temple garden he made with Hatshepsut
and the first great example of the garden as a
work of art.
The fourth ancient enclosure-type is the
Hunting Park, but the name is misleading.
They were places in which to take exercise
and ‘hunt’ for animals and plants but they also
had religious and symbolic roles. Seeing them
as predecessors of the nature reserve and
the wild garden, the Persian Paradise and the
Chinese Imperial Park are in this category.
They were places to admire and enjoy the
wonders of nature. The modern equivalent is
making gardens and ecological parks to attract
birds and other wildlife.
See also Online guide to garden types.
Butterflies in a wildlife garden
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The other aspects of function is the various
uses to which gardens are put:
Growing food, flowers, herbs and trees,
keeping animals, aviaries, fish ponds,
sunbathing, hot tubs, barbecues, outdoor
work, exercise, outdoor cooking and eating,
entertaining, outdoor art collections, childrens
play, garden games, swimming, boating,
tombs, ceremonies, fish ponds, bee keeping,
pigeon houses, outdoor sitting, hunting
deer. Other functional considerations relate
to access, drives, paths, compost heaps,
watering, propagation and so forth.

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Old garden walls were made of mud brick
Roman mosaic paving
Sand and gravel are excellent materials
Fresh snow is inspiring.
Construction, Planting and
Materials
Materials
Gathering materials precedes construction.
Early gardens must have been made with
immediately available materials, including
earth, water, mud, stone and wood, but
when construction technology became more
sophisticated, wood and stone were collected
from a wider area. This involved selection
Christopher Tunnard expressed the principle
as follows: ‘use only the best materials’. The
Egyptians assembled building stones from
far afield but used them only for key features
of a design. The primary material was local
mud, shaped into bricks for building walls
and laid as a plaster for paving. The English
verb ‘to pave’ derives from the Latin pavire ‘to
beat, ram, tread down’. In Egypt the ‘paved’
mud was often painted to make a decorative
outdoor surface.
A significant point about Tunnard’s principle is
that ‘the best materials’ are not necessarily the
most expensive materials. Mud is an excellent
material in a dry climate. Unbound gravel, if
well chosen, remains a material of the highest
quality and costs much less than concrete,
which almost always looks trashy in gardens.
Concrete may have the charm of fresh snow
when first laid but it decays thereafter.
Dirty snow is depressing.
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 Grass is an excellent material: gentle, calm, a
symbol of order - and inexpensive in humid
climates. But where water is scarce and
expensive grass becomes a luxury.

Umberto Eco wrote that, ‘The green turf

wich is in the middle of the medieval cloister
refreshes encloistered eyes and their desire
returns to study’.
See also: Online guide to materials

South Lawn at The White House Lawn at Wisley RHS Garden

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Stainless steel, reflecting vegetation
Some of the modern materials used in
gardens show every sign of being as good
as the old materials: beautiful and durable,
like laminated glass and stainless steel. The
aging process is a key issue. Lead and stone
grow old gracefully. Glass and stainless steel
retain their perfection. Copper and lead are
expensive materials but long-lasting and
capable of developing beautiful patina as they
age. Oak develops a silver sheen as it ages.
The cheap softwoods rot and stain.
Greenish glass sphere

Copper fountain Fern leaf in stainless steel

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Stone develops a patina. Concrete decays.

Oak develops a patina. Softwoods decay.

Bricks develop a patina. Concrete blocks don’t.

Moss likes old bricks Thermoplastics fade, stain and crack

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Garden construction is often wet
Old red bricks with like mortar and globe thistle
Construction
Garden construction relates to architectural
construction and engineering construction but
with significant differences. For example:
• civil engineering work is often ‘wet’,
like garden construction, but is rarely
designed with regard to aesthetic
considerations
• architectural construction is designed
to be kept as dry as possible, and free
of plant growth (except for the growing
popularity of green roofs and green
walls)
• garden construction should be water-
tolerant, sympathetic to plants, frost-
tolerant in cold climates and drought-
tolerant in dry climates,
• gardens grow and change. They
are 4-dimensional. They are not
3-dimensional. Therefore garden
construction should be flexible.
Garden brickwork illustrates these points. First,
garden bricks must be frost-resistant in frost-
prone areas. Water expands as it cools below
freezing point and unless, the bricks have
sufficient water resistence and compressive
strength (50N/mm² ), they will crumble
after being frozen. Second, colour, texture
and jointing are more important in garden
construction, because one is so often close to
the brickwork. Third, one should use different
mortars for garden construction: they can be
weaker. Fourth, one should always consider
the use of lime mortar, instead of Portland
cement mortar, for garden construction: it is
more sympathetic to plants and you will always
have the opportunity to take the brickwork or
stonework apart and re-use the materials in a
re-modeled garden design. Fifth, when using
bricks for paths, they can be laid with a very
week mortar or with sand joints and a firm
edge. Sixth, and for all these reasons, one
should expect to pay more for bricks when
they are for garden use – or else look round
for high-quality second-hand bricks to re-cycle.
Love is a key ingredient for garden
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 construction. Modern residential gardens
are pleasure gardens and there is no point
making them without a love of good materials
and good construction. The old joke that
some people live to eat and others eat to live
applies: peasants garden to live and garden
loving-people live to garden. If they grow their
own vegetables, they want nutritious, tasty
organic food. When they make gardens, they
want construction of the highest quality.

A well-loved and beautiful garden

High quality construction, at Hidcote Manor, makes a place to love

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Planting by Tom Stuart-Smith, with a steel backdrop, at the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show

Green and white: Angelica and Aquilegia

Planting design
‘Use only the best materials’ also applies to
plants. Some good plants can be obtained
from the low-price suppliers. But for many
plants you need good varieties which can only
be obtained from known suppliers, who may
be friends or specialist nurseries. They can be
varieties you have seen or obtained by mail
order or bought from suppliers you can trust to
have found the best varieties and grown them
with good roots and without pests or diseases.
Astilbe and Lobelia

Stipa arundinacea with Achillea Red poppies and bricks, by Denise Preston

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 Planting design
principles:
1 Apply the ‘principles of abstract design’, as
outlined above. It is better to think about
plant combinations than about individual
plants, allowing for composition with regard
to form, colour, texture etc.

2 See what plants are flourishing near your

Acer palmatum dissectum
garden: in both parks and gardens. Then
see what does well in similar geographical
conditions elsewhere.

3 Remember the principle: ‘Right Plant –

Right Place’. You need to know what role
the plants will have in the overall planting
design and whether the plants will flourish
in the local growing conditions (sun, shade,
acidity, alkalinity, precipitation, irrigation,
winter temperature, summer temperature,
etc)
Kniphofia withstands the wind and enjoys the sun
4 See living examples, and illustrations, of
the plant arrangements and combinations
which have proved successful over an
endless period of time – by visiting historic
gardens and thinking how they have used
plants, and for what reasons.

5 Learn from how individual plants grow in

their natural habitat.

6 Learn from how plants are composed in

Jekyll wrote on Colour schemes for the flower garden natural habitats (bogs, prairies, woodland
margins, ponds, mountains etc).

7 Compose plants in relation to other

materials

8 Think of plant colours as an artist thinks of

a paint colours, arranged on a pallette

See also: Online guide to planting design

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 Aesthetics/Delight
To create aesthetic quality, garden designers
draw upon:

• beliefs about the nature of the world

• the principles of abstract design
• contemporary art and design, in which
aesthetic and artistic ideas have been
applied to other creative activities
• the history of garden design, which
contains examples of how these principles
The Sky God’s home have been applied to gardens

These four approaches will be considered in

turn.

Beliefs about nature

Throughout history, beliefs about the nature
of the world have been a leading factor in
determining the form of aesthetically designed
gardens, as can be shown with the following
examples
Medinet Habu, Egypt
In Mesopotamia and Egypt, people believed
that the world had been created by gods and
that kings were descended from gods. This led
to the making of temples and gardens in which
religious ceremonies were held and in which
kings were buried.

In Ancient China, it was believed that

gods lived in mountains, rivers, islands and
other features of the landscape, which were
symbolically represented in landscape parks
belonging to the emperor. The arrival of
Buddhism in China and Japan, from India,
encouraged this idea and led to the making
of naturalistic gardens with ponds and stones
and temples symbolizing the Buddha’s
Western Paradise.

Chinese mountains were considered divine

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 In Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire and
Christian Europe, the predominant belief
was that Art Should Imitate Nature in the
sense of representing the often mathematical
nature of the world. The effect of this idea on
garden designers changed as the European
understanding of ‘nature’ shifted from ‘the
Forms used to create the world’ (which
produced Formal Gardens) to ‘the Particulars
of the everyday world’ (which produced Natural
Gardens).
Temple of Hephaestus, Athens, Greece
In the Twentieth Century, all over the world,
gardens came to be influenced by artists who
aimed to express their individual beliefs about
aspects of the nature, as seen, analyzed or
experienced. This led to the making of Abstract
Modern Gardens and then to Postmodern
and Post-abstract Gardens. The latter, often
described as Theme Gardens, became the
dominant trend in garden design in the early
Twenty First Century. Themes are drawn from:
garden history, functions, art, construction,
planting, and from current ideas about the
nature of the world (science, sustainability,
conservation etc). The last section of this
A garden in Barcelona

Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, Barcelona

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Classical urns: painted white, with a pink pelargonium
(above) and unpainted below, with Geranium palma-
tum
eBook, on Gardening with Ideas, is about the
use of ideas to make Theme Gardens.
The principles of abstract design
‘The bases of abstract design, running through
history like a silver thread, are independent
of race and age. Their one unchanging form
of expression is through pattern, both a
wholesome admission of human limitation and
a sturdy foundation from which afterwards to
build. Pattern is the architectural prototype of
the formality of life, and in the same way is
modified by the circumstances of the moment,
principally those governing the relation of
formality to informality. In any design where
nature is admitted, such as the garden,
this relationship is the first consideration’.
[J.C.Shepherd and G J Jellicoe, Italian
gardens of the renaissance p.18]
The principles of abstract design guide the
creation of art and design, including gardens.
Relating in different ways to the various
fields of art, they are more talked about than
written about. Rhythm and Movement have
a particular importance in music and dance.
Harmony describes a pleasing consistency,
again with a specific meaning in music.
Balance is of concern in everyday life and
in works of art. Proportion concerns the
inter-relationship of parts. Symbolism, refers
to the wider cultural, social, psychological,
philosophical and religious context in
which works of art are created. Contrast
distinguishes objects from backgrounds. Unity
describes a work of art which is a consistent
whole. Variety refers to the variation which
gives a design continuous interest. Unity with
Variety is one of the oldest design objectives.
A Composition is an orderly arrangement,
reflecting the principles of design.
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 1 Water
The Six Grand Compositional Elements
of garden design and landscape architecture
are Water, Landform, Structures, Paving,
Planting and Climate. They are composed
with regard to the Genius of the Place and
to detailed consideration of the Elements
of Design: Line, Colour (Chroma, Intensity,
Value), Texture, Shape, Form, Size, Scale,
Space.
.
See also: Online guide to garden design
2 Earth

3 Structures 5 Planting

4 Paving 6 Climate

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Historic styles of
garden design in the
west
The diagrams in the chart below evolved over
a 30-year period and were published in Gar-
den history philosophy and design (2005).
When time permits, the chart will be extended,
and adjusted, to include the history of Garden
design in Asia – with east and west meas-
ured from the place ‘where history began’, in
Mesopotamia. Meanwhile, the diagrams are
explained with examples in the eBook on 24
Historic Styles of Garden Design (Gardenvisit.
com,2008).

23

The Burj in Dubai, inspired by a sail
The Tower of the Winds, in Athens
Design themes
Most historic garden styles were based on be-
liefs and communicated meaningful ideas. The
beliefs were often religious and the meanings
were often related to ideas about the creation
and operation of the world (cosmogenesis).
Most people now turn to science for an ex-
planation of how nature works - but science
remains silent of the question of why it works
this way. In place of the shrines which the
Romans had in courtyards, modern designers
use themes relating to the nature of the world.
The chosen themes connect to aspects of the
cosmos, without trying to explain the creation.
Design themes relate to the sun, the wind, col-
ours, the nature of materials, the interpretation
of nature in art and the conservation of nature
in gardens. The remainder of this eBook is an
edited version of an essay first published (as
‘Gardening with ideas’) in City as landscape:
a post-Postmodern view of design and plan-
ning. Themes are to postmodern gardens what
quotations are to postmodern architecture:
they are what make the designs post-abstract.
Viewers get more pleasure from designs they
can understand - which is difficult in abstract
art. Architectural examples of themes include
the postmodern buildings in the Middle East
(eg Burj al Arab hotel in Dubai), inspired by
wind-blown dhows and sails, and theTower
inspired by the Winds in Ancient Athens.
Gardening with ideas
Physically, gardens must have boundaries.
Mentally, they can reach to the limits of the
universe. The ideas that bestow such vast
extent derive from sun, earth, art, water,
history, civilization, family, anything. Let us
therefore look at the inspiration which has,
and can, derive from sun, wind, materials,
sculpture and the conservation movement.
Most of the examples in this essay are
historic. This is because, in the arts, it is often
necessary to look backwards in order to move
forward. As Winston Churchill put it: ‘The
farther backward you can look, the farther
forward you can see.’
24
The art of shadows
Orbital movement of the Earth causes the
gradual and predictable travel of a shadow
across the face of a sundial. Each sundial
must be designed for an exact location.
Otherwise, it will only reveal the dialler’s
ignorance. Adaptation to a precise location and
the Genius of that Place is a good principle
in garden design. The length of the shadow
cast by a sundial’s gnomon depends on the
time of year, the latitude and the position of
the earth on its daily rotation. Two identical
dials, in different gardens, will cast different
shadows at the same time. Sunlight itself
is produced by the conversion of hydrogen
to helium and takes 8 minutes to travel the
149.6 million kilometers from sun to earth. It is
little wonder that dials induce contemplation.
They were placed on church towers, because
‘time is a sacred thing’. When mechanical
clocks became available, the demand for dials
increased: they were needed to set the clocks.
When other ways of setting clocks became
available, many old dials were moved into
vicarage gardens.
English sundials have been inscribed with
mottoes since the beginning of the sixteenth
century. Mrs Alfred Gatty, a parsons’s wife,
gave the reason:
What could be more natural to a scholarly
and reflecting mind than to point the moral of
passing time in a brief sentence which arouses
thought. (Gatty, 1890)
She produced a book of sundial mottoes and
wrote that
The great Creator, who made the sun to rule
the day and the moon and the stars to govern
the night, has adapted our nature to these
intermitting changes, and implanted in us an
immediate desire to count how, drop by drop,
or grain by grain, time and life are passing
away.
The oldest mottoes are in Latin and have a
religious theme, often imbued with northern
gloom:
HORA FUGIT, MORS VENIT: Time passes,
death advances.

25
 FERT OMNIA AETAS: Time bears all away.
DOCET UMBRA: The shadow teaches.
MANEO NEMINI: I wait for no one.
MEMENTO FINIS: Remember the end.
SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDIS: So passes
the glory of the world.
The best-known motto, TEMPUS FUGIT,
has become trite, but Thomas a Kempis’ line
from Imitatio Christi, the last example in the
above list, has a majesty that is undimmed
by repetition. So does St Paul’s advice to the
Lightning Ephesians:
SOL NON OCCIDAT SUPER IRACUNDIAM
VESTRAM: Let not the sun go down upon your
wrath.

Weather, climate and gardens

Links between an enclosed garden and the
wide world can be observed in other ways:
the effect of a hard frost; a midwinter spring;
a drought; the rich downpour after an electric
Frost storm; fresh air after rain. Some plants need
a position where their leaves dry quickly and
roots can grow into peaty soil, as happens
on an alpine ledge. Climatic factors lead into
designs.
Winds come from afar, light from an
immense distance. Careful observation
yields information that is both useful and
interesting. In the south of England, I like to
know that a particular wind comes from the
steppes of Central Asia, from the western
Channel approaches or from Southern Europe.
Windvanes, like sundials, give a perspective
Raindrops on the planet. The smallest garden becomes
a vantage point from which to contemplate
the cosmos. The vast dimensions of weather
are surely one explanation of why ‘When two
Englishmen meet, they first talk about the
weather’, as Dr Johnson observed. Gardeners
need to be weatherwise. Seeds can be sown
when warm damp weather is forecast. Plants
which have been moved like a heavy shower
after planting. The hoe works best when hot
dry weather is coming. Tender plants need
protection from icy winds. Gardeners have,
Water on leaf

26
therefore, been avid collectors of weather lore.
Pliny advised us not to ‘sow in a north wind,
or graft when the wind is in the south’. Francis
Bacon believed ‘wet weather with an east wind
continues longer than with a west’.

Weathervanes and gardens

The ‘vane’ in weathervane derives from
the Greek penos, meaning cloth. Sailors
fastened cloths to their masts to show the wind
direction. Soldiers, not wanting to charge into
wind and dust, fixed coloured cloths to tall
spears. Before the days of military uniforms,
cloths also served as regimental signs,
sometimes emblazoned with the commander’s
coat of arms. Crusader tents were topped with
pennants. Knights were honoured with the
right to place heraldic vanes on their castles.
Commoners, in France, were not granted the
right to put up weathervanes until 1659.
The three classic vane designs are the
arrow, the pennant and the cockerel. It is
said that a ninth century papal bull required a
weathercock to be fixed to every church and
monastery. The cock was the emblem of St
Peter and a symbolic reminder of the need for
vigilance. St Mark (xiv 30) relates that:
And Jesus saith unto him, Verily
I say unto thee, That this day, even
in this night, before the cock crow
twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.
As well as being places of worship, the
churches of the Middle Ages were concert
halls, art galleries, museums, meeting houses,
and weather stations too. Every church had a
sundial and a weathervane. For farmers and
gardeners, weathervanes were meteorological
instruments. This is why they are often called
‘weather’ rather than ‘wind’ vanes. Since
The Times began publishing them in 1860,
weather forecasts have been freely available.
Information is now passed from satellite to TV
in every home, and the vane is regarded as an
obsolete decoration. But they still have a role.
Even when the forecasters are correct that ‘a
westerly airflow will bring rain to most areas’, it
is useful for the gardener to see when the wind

27
The Kaaba in al-Masjid al-Haram mosque in veers into the west. A vane makes the satellite
Mecca, Saudi Arabia. picture of planetary airflows specific to your
garden.

The oldest written description of a

weathervane is that of the Tower of Winds in
Athens. Vitruvius describes it as follows:

On the several sides of the octagon he [Andronicus

of Cyrrhus] executed reliefs representing the
several winds, each facing the point from which
it blows; and on top of the tower he set a conical
shaped piece of marble and on this a bronze Triton
with a rod outstretched in its right hand. It was
so contrived as to go round with the wind, always
stopping to face the breeze and holding its rod as a
pointer directly over the representation of the wind
that was blowing. (Vitruvius, 1914 edn)

28

Decaying concrete slabs
The brick wall above was built in the seventeenth cen-
tury, with lime mortar - and very badly repaired with
Portland cement mortar in the twentieth century.
The Brick wall below was built with lime mortar and
a multi-brick 12 months before the photograph was
taken.
The materials of garden design
Technical considerations are important when
choosing garden materials, but so are ideas
and associations. Consider the concrete slab.
It has wreaked havoc in modern gardens.
Concrete is a faithless material: it has the
crispness of fresh snow when first laid, but
deteriorates thereafter. Fresh snow symbolizes
virginal purity. Stained concrete symbolizes
the ‘concrete jungle’. Out of sight is the
proper place for concrete in gardens. Stone,
by contrast, symbolizes strength, unity and
eternity. During the animistic era, stones were
worshipped, with meteorites held in the highest
regard. The Black Stone of Kaaba, kissed by
pilgrims who visit the Great Mosque in Mecca,
is believed to have fallen from heaven as a
white stone and turned black on encountering
the sins of man.
Old garden walls were built with lime mortar,
which is softer and kinder to plants than cold
grey Portland cement. Hydraulic lime is made
by heating chalk or limestone to drive off
the carbon dioxide. When it is re-mixed with
water and exposed to the air, it recombines
with carbon dioxide and reverts to its original
chemical state. Carbon dioxide reaches the
outside of the mortar first, and it may be a
century before full bond strength is achieved.
This has made lime mortar unpopular with
builders, but it can still be used by gardeners.
Twenty years after completing a wall, one can
be thinking that ‘it’s getting strong now’, as one
does with a tree of the same age.
‘You are a perfect brick’ is now an old-
fashioned compliment. It was given to people
who were strong, warm and kind. These
remain the qualities of good bricks. Mud bricks,
of the type used for the walls of Babylon, were
made by shaping wet mud into blocks. They
were dried in the sun and placed in position,
sometimes with pitch in the joints. About 3000
BC it was discovered that when mud bricks are
fired they become hard, as when clay is made
into pots. The Romans became expert at
brick-making and brought the skill to Northern
Europe. When they left, brick manufacture
29
 virtually ceased. Hard Roman bricks were
salvaged throughout the Middle Ages to
build chimney stacks and church spires. It is
not easy to achieve high temperatures in a
primitive kiln. Brick manufacture recommenced
in England after AD 1200, but good-quality
bricks were imported from the Low Countries
for many centuries. Small hard Dutch bricks
can still be found in the south of England. It is
only in recent times that brick sizes have been
standardized, and it has not been a benefit for
Roman brickwork garden construction.
Hand-made bricks have a varied surface
texture, which cannot be reproduced by
machines. They can also be made in any size.
Lutyens liked 50 mm (2 in) thick bricks, instead
of the standard 75 mm (3 in). Hand-made
bricks may seem a luxury, but few gardens
require a large quantity, and the cost of the
raw materials is not a large proportion of the
brickwork cost. One soon forgets the cost; one
never forgets the pleasure. If one is doing the
work oneself, the cost of first‑rate materials
is easily justified. And it is very therapeutic to
do one’s own brickwork, as Winston Churchill
found in the 1930s.
Terracotta is an ancient material, which
remains of great value in gardens. It is
just clay that has been shaped and fired,
usually to a lower temperature than bricks, to
achieve that gorgeous red colour. It is used
to make tiles and pots. The word ‘terracotta’
means ‘fired earth’. In the Mediterranean
countries, the manufacture of terracotta pots
has continued since ancient times. They are
shown on wall paintings of Egyptian and
Terracotta pots Roman gardens, and some of the shapes are
still available. These pots are a link with the
gardens of antiquity, with Plato and Aristotle,
Bacchus and the Maenads, Pliny, Virgil and
the Medici gardens of Tuscany. The festoon
and swag patterns on classical pots derive
from the garlands of vine leaves that were
used to decorate gardens at festival times.
Tuscany remains a great centre of terracotta
manufacture. Spanish, Greek and Portuguese
pots are also beautiful.
See also: Online guide to materials.

30
Statue by John Thomas, at the Crystal Palace in London (with two sphinxs)

31

Diana fountain at Caserta (by Goth Eric)
A copy of the Medici Venus, at Versailles (by Nicolas
Frémery). The Latin word Venustas, deriving from the
goddess’s name, is translated into English as ‘loveli-
ness, charm, attractiveness, beauty’. The statue is a
copy of a first century BC statue, probably made in Ath-
ens. The dolphin by her leg symbolizes her emergence
from the sea. Venus is one of the most popular subjects
in western garden history.
Sculpture as a theme
Baron Waldstein visited the grove at Nonsuch
Palace in 1600 and admired the polychrome
statues of three naked goddesses spraying
Actaeon with water (Strong, 1979). The Baron
remarked that ‘nature’ was ‘imitated’ with the
greatest skill. He thought the grove ‘natural’
because it was the kind of scene the ancients
would have appreciated. So too have the
moderns. Themes from classical mythology
have reminded gardeners of what Sir Kenneth
Clark described as the myth of ‘a golden age
when men lived on the fruits of the earth in
peace and simplicity’ (Clark, 1976). Gardens,
antique shops, and garden centres are filled
with casts of Diana, Venus and other classical
figures. The Gods of Antiquity dominate the
history of western garden sculpture.
Since Varro, the Roman poet, hailed Venus
as the presiding deity of gardens, she has
been blessed with a long and prosperous
reign. Other gods have jostled for power but
Venus still rules in a multitude of verdant
kingdoms. Diana also has an honoured place.
Having seen her mother suffer in childbirth,
Diana obtained permission from her father
to live in celibacy, and became a symbol of
purity and virtue. Some males, like Mercury
and the heroic gladiator, have challenged her
ascendancy. None will triumph.
The gardens of Renaissance Italy were
outdoor ‘museums’, in the original sense of
‘homes for the muses’. Classical learning
was rediscovered from ancient books and
manuscripts. Music was played. Poetry was
read. Classical sculptures, excavated from the
ruins of Greece and Rome, were displayed in
gardens. The Belvedere Garden in the Vatican
was adorned with the most famous statues
from ancient times. Princely families, like the
Medici, the Estes and the Ludovisi, obtained
what statues they could from the ruins. When
Lorenzo de Medici discussed the philosophy of
Plato, in his garden, classical statuary was an
aid to contemplation.
A taste for placing classical statuary in gardens
spread with the Renaissance to northern
32

The marble original of the ‘Borghese Gladiator’
was found in the Greek city of Ephesus, now in
Turkey. It was bought by the Borghese family is
marble and is now in the Louvre, Paris (above).
Widely admired in the eighteenth century, it was
regarded as a perfect example of human pro-
portions and many copies were made for gar-
dens.
The lead copy of the Borghese Gladiator at Cas-
tle Howard, below, was made by John Cheere
c1740 and sold for 14 guineas.
Europe. The first great set of casts was
made for the garden that Francois I began
at Fontainebleau in 1528. Garden design
became a royal art, and collecting sculpture
became a competitive hobby. Francois’ rival,
Henry VIII of England, placed sculpture in his
garden at Nonsuch (after 1538). Louis XIV
assembled a vast collection at Versailles, and
his admirer, Charles II, had casts of antique
statues made for his London gardens.
When Inigo Jones and Lord Arundel returned
from Italy in 1614, they had acquired a love
of classical sculpture. A magnificent collection
was assembled in the garden of Arundel
House. It was the first museum garden in
England. Unfortunately, the marble statues
could not withstand the English climate. They
now reside in Oxford’s Ashmolean museum.
Garden sculpture fell into disrepute during
the English Civil War. A biblical injunction not
to worship graven images was remembered.
Pagan gods were despised. Symbols of
monarchy were destroyed. The Cheapside
Cross in London was melted down ‘with
ringing of Bells, and a great acclamation’ as
part of a campaign to rid London of ‘leaden
Popes’. Lead garden statuary was made into
musket shot. Thus were graven images made
to serve the puritan cause. A few musket
balls have found their way back into garden
ornaments, one may speculate.
The use of sculpture in English gardens
revived after the restoration of Charles II in
1660. From this point until the end of the
eighteenth century, ‘English’ garden sculpture
is largely the story of north European migrants
making copies of Greek statues, Roman
statues, and Italian Renaissance statues.
Classical goddesses were given key positions
on terraces, where paths meet and where
avenues terminate. Statues of nymphs,
cherubs and animals had less formal positions.
Lions stood guard on steps. Dolphins leapt in
ponds.
Roman gladiators played a part in the
development of English gardens. Pope
mocked them in his 1731 Epistle to Lord
Burlington:
33

A small Borghese Gladiator
Borghese Gladiator at Musée Lorrain
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as Trees,
With here a Fountain, never to be play’d ...
When Gladiators fight, or die, in flow’rs;
Un-water’d see the drooping Sea-horse
mourn.
The victim of Pope’s satire may have been
the Borghese Gladiator, though he was in
the best of health, or the Dying Gladiator,
who was to be seen dying amid the flower
gardens of the 1720s. Pope’s attack had
deadly consequences for the Enclosed Style
of garden design, but no immediate effect
on England’s population of gladiators. There
is a stone copy of the Dying Gladiator at
Rousham. It was made by Peter Sheemakers,
who was born in Flanders and, after some
years in Rome, spent the remainder of his life
in England. Rousham also has a collection
of work by Henry Cheere, of French descent,
and by the Dutchman John van Nost. There
are copies of the Dancing Faun, Venus,
Apollo, Ceres, Pan, and Mercury. It may seem
surprising that there is so much classical
statuary at Rousham, the ancestor of the
world’s landscape gardens, but in its Augustan
phase the English landscape garden was a
concerted attempt to re-create the landscape
of antiquity.
The pantomime diversity of late-eighteenth
century garden statuary is revealed by
Cheere’s advertisement. He offered
‘the Gods of Athens, and of Rome’ with
‘Punch, Harlequin, Columbine and other
pantomimical characters; mowers whetting
their scythes, haymakers resting on their
rakes, gamekeepers in the act of shooting
and Roman soldiers with firelocks’. His
statues were painted in bright colours, more
reminiscent of The Rake’s Progress than the
austere eighteenth century gardens we see
today. Nor did Cheere neglect the slave trade.
A popular model, has a Nubian on bended
knee supporting a bird table or sundial. War
with Napoleon led to the closure of London’s
lead-casting yards, as another war had done
in Cromwell’s time. It was reported that, once
again, ‘whole regiments of leaden Venuses,
Moors, Jupiters, angels, saints, nymphs, and
A Nubian on bended knee, with a sundial
34

The Belvedere was a sculpture gallery
Hawkins bull at Biddulph Grange
Highland Mary in Sefton Park conservatory
fauns were converted into bullets’.
It is regrettable that so little original sculpture
was produced for gardens, but there is no
reason whatsoever to despise the use of
copies. Statues look marvellous out of doors,
and it would often be vandalism to expose
an original work to the elements. One tends
to be further away from garden statues than
from museum statues, and it is the garden
rather than the statue that is the original work
of art. A copy will give a better impression of a
statue’s three-dimensional quality than a book
illustration, which might be the only other way
of knowing a famous work.
A refreshing trend, in the second half of the
nineteenth century, is that new sculpture
began to be commissioned for special
locations. Waterhouse Hawkins, an artist and
anatomist, made a lead bull for the Chinese
section of the garden at Biddulph Grange, and
a series of prehistoric monsters for the Crystal
Palace at Sydenham. John Thomas carved
26 statues representing different countries
for the upper terrace at Sydenham. Thomas
also made neoclassical works for the splendid
water feature in Kensington Gardens. Their
character is ‘Italian’ rather than ‘classical’. All
these projects arose from the Victorians’ thirst
for knowledge about foreign lands, past times
and exotic cultures.
The Victorians also had a passion for ideal
works, representing subjects from mythology
and literature. Ideal works were usually
placed in the home but, as in the case of John
Thomas’ Night and Day at Somerleyton Hall,
were sometimes placed in gardens. Excellent
examples of ideal works survive in the Palm
House at Sefton Park, including Highland Mary
and Angel’s Whisper by Benjamin Edward
Spence, modelled on characters from Robert
Burns and Thomas Moore. Highland Mary,
inspired by Burns’ song, is an lovely example
of an ideal work:
How sweetly bloom’d the gay green birk!
How rich the hawthorn’s blossom!
As underneath their fragrant shade,
I clasp’d her to my bosom!
The golden hours, on angel wings,
35

Henry Moore sculpture at Bentley Wood
George Frampton’s Peter Pan
Physical Energy, by G.F Watts
Flew o’er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life,
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
The New Sculpture of the late nineteenth
century was concerned with the representation
of ideas, and was well suited to outdoor
display. Disappointingly little was placed in
private gardens, but there are some successful
examples in public parks, including George
Frampton’s Peter Pan and G.F. Watts’
Physical Energy in Kensington Gardens,
and William Hamo Thornycroft’s Sower in
Kew Gardens. Reginald Blomfield and F.
Inigo Thomas, both closely associated with
the Arts and Crafts movement, published a
book on The Formal Garden in England. The
terraces and courtyards they advocated led to
many opportunities for the display of garden
sculpture. One of the most interesting projects
was Barrow Court. Inigo Thomas designed the
gardens and introduced Alfred Drury. Drury
was a brilliant sculptor and made twelve busts,
one for each pier of the railings round the
semicircular entrance court. They represented
the twelve months of the year by showing the
life cycle of a girl from infancy to old age. Arts
and Crafts sculptors were attracted to animal
sculpture, and many examples found their way
into gardens.
A new generation of sculptors and garden
designers came to the fore in the 1930s. They
were influenced by the Modern Movement
in art and design, and hoped to create a
startlingly new abstract art. English sculptors,
led by Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson,
became leaders in this new art. But English
garden designers had scant success in
attracting the public to the abstract style of
garden design, though it was widely adopted
in continental Europe and the Americas. In
England it remained a style for architects and
their more avant‑garde clients. At Bentley
Wood in Sussex, once the purest example of
a Modern Movement garden in England, the
house was designed by Serge Chermayef,
an architect, for himself, and the garden by
Christopher Tunnard, who wrote an influential
book on the future of garden design. The
36

Henry Moore, King and Queen (detail)
Henry Moore’s Knife Edge, in Greenwich Park
plan of the garden was influenced by a Henry
Moore sculpture, his Recumbent Figure, which
stood in the garden.
Modern sculpture can be difficult to place in
gardens, because it is less well understood
than classical sculpture. The shock of the
new persists. But much can be learned from
the ideas of leading sculptors. The Japanese-
American sculptor Isamu Noguchi hardly
distinguished between the two arts. His
courtyard for the library at Yale University
can be regarded either as sculpture or as a
sculpture garden. Nogucci wrote that ‘I like to
think of gardens as [the] sculpturing of space’.
So should we.
Henry Moore, at the start of his career, felt
uneasy about placing sculpture in gardens.
He felt that a sculpture lost its independence
by becoming part of a garden design, and
he remembered the old days when sculptors
had worked to the dictat of architects. But
he loved to place sculpture in the landscape
and, towards the end of his life, placed
a considerable number of works in his
own garden. Anthony Caro remarked that
‘sculpture... more often than not spoils the
landscape’. This may be because his own
constructions represent abstract space, which
can conflict with an existing space. In gardens,
ithe space itself, rather than the sculpture, is
the primary work of art.
Modern sculpture makes use of a great range
of materials, which behave in different ways
out of doors. Coloured fibreglass tends to fade,
and the fibreglass itself is gradually decayed
by ultraviolet light. Wood is a natural material
for outdoor use. It must be expected to change
and decay, but this can be regarded as part
of the sculpture’s nature. Mild steel, as used
by Anthony Caro and others, is prone to rust
unless painted or galvanized. Stainless steel, if
it is of the best quality, will retain its high polish
indefinitely. Ceramic sculpture is extremely
durable. Fresh materials can certainly be
placed in gardens. A new marriage between
sculpture and garden design will inject vitality
into both arts.
See also Online guide to sculpture & ornament
37

Roses in Greenwich Park
Wild flower meadows in England (above) and Spain (below)
Conservation gardens
Few will deny the charm of a perfect rosebed.
Even if the owner does have to apply regular
dressings of fertilizer, insecticide, fungicide
and herbicide, the effect on the global
environment will not be excessive. But there
is another way of gardening, which could
improve the global environment were it
widely adopted. Some may think it a style for
sandal-wearing vegetarians, but the gardens
it produces have a sweet charm that escapes
the high-tech gardener. Conservation is an
inspiring theme. Like the sundial, it gives a
sense of perspective. Unlike the sundial, it
provides an opportunity to influence the future
of the world.
38
An English lawn and an Austrian wildflower meadow

39
Bluebell wood
When are you going to cut the grass, darling?’
is the question that disturbs the peace of too
many summer afternoons. So do the whines
and grumbles of motor mowers. Next time the
question is asked may be a good time to sit
back and consider how much of your grass
really has to be ‘cut’, how often, and by what
means. To judge from the books, being a ‘lawn
expert’ is a matter of cutting, rolling, fertilizing,
spiking, scarifying, watering, and applying
selective weedkillers. The story is told of an
Field poppies and Echium American who asked the old gardener in an
English stately home about the secret of his
success. ‘Well Guv,’ came the reply, ‘yer mows
it once a day, and yer rolls it once a week. And
after y’rve done that for a ‘undred years - yer
does it regular.’ No doubt he used a sharp,
well-oiled, hand-mower. It is still possible to
purchase a high-quality hand machine and
enjoy something of Old Adam’s delight in a
perfect lawn. The exercise is good, and must
be regular. The sound of a hand-mower is
a counterpoint to the owner’s breathing. It

Wild flowers in Italy

40
 conserves fossil fuels and saves one from the
indignity of an exercise bicycle.
The poetic alternative to the expert’s lawn is
the wildflower meadow. There, as Swinburn
put it, ‘tides of grass break into foam of
flowers’. The grand old man of wild gardening,
William Robinson, once asked ‘Who would not
rather see the waving grass with countless
flowers than a close shaven surface without a
bloom?’. As the possessor of a fine Victorian
beard, he was fond of remarking that shaving
Wild plums your face is as foolish as shaving your
grass. Meadows are undoubtedly good for
conservation. However small the area, it is
pleasant to look out on a habitat for birds and
bees, caterpillars and butterflies, cow parsley,
mallow and knapweed. One of the most
beautiful effects in gardens is the contrast
between mown and unmown grass.
It is a wonder that more people do not devote
larger areas of their gardens to fruit. The crop
is unlikely to look as perfect as supermarket
fruit but the flavour should be better, and one
can be sure that no dangerous chemicals will
Gooseberries have been applied. Fruiting plants are very
good at making green leaves, and ornamental
plants often look best with a backdrop of
green. There is something unsettling about
a garden where a majority of the leaves are
yellow, purple, grey, light green, or dark green,
instead of classic ‘leaf green’. If one doesn’t
succeed in harvesting all the fruit, it will be
more popular with birds and insects than
berries from the cotoneaster and berberis,
as recommended in some books on wildlife
gardening.
‘Thou shalt make compost unceasingly’ was
the first commandment of environmental
gardening. The cry went up long before
‘pollution’ and ‘conservation’ became vogue
words, and the humble compost heap remains
the best example of a recycling project. The
world would be a better place if cities could
find ways of recycling a larger proportion of
their organic wastes. Compost contains both
organic matter, which provides good physical
conditions for plant growth, and a better range
of nutrients than any chemical fertilizer.
Grapes

41
Mown and unmown grass make a beautiful contrast

42

Home-made compost, from a bin
Teak forestry
Teak-made Steamer Chair
Forest garden
The substitutes that garden centres offer
for well-made compost too often cause
environmental damage. Artificial fertilizers are
washed out of the soil and find their way into
rivers, lakes and water supplies. Nitrates are
particularly harmful. In rivers, they cause an
excess growth of algae, fatal to other wildlife.
In water supplies, nitrates are accused of
aggravating various diseases. Peat is an
off-the-shelf solution to a lack of soil organic
matter. It does no particular harm to the
place where it is applied, but considerable
harm to the places from which it is removed.
Gardeners who like to conserve their bank
balances might also reflect that peat is an
expensive commodity, which lasts for a very
short time in the soil.
Ethical considerations affect another material
that is common in gardens: timber. In the
eighteenth century, most good-quality garden
furniture was made of oak. It was the only
durable hardwood, and it acquires a soft
silvery sheen out of doors. Where it is rubbed,
oak takes on a faint polish, redolent of peace
and tranquillity. Tropical hardwoods have now
taken the place of oak in the manufacture of
garden furniture. Many are of excellent quality,
even more durable than oak, but their use has
provoked an avalanche of protest from the
environmental lobby. It is objected that tropical
timbers come from rainforest clearance,
which is unjust to the native populations and
will cause permanent harm to the global
ecosystem. If this were the case, I certainly
would not want the booty in my garden.
Tropical hardwoods should be certified (eg by
the Forest Stewardship Council, FSC).
The climax vegetation of most town gardens is
deciduous forest. Other plants require special
management to survive, using physical and
chemical techniques. It is the chemicals that
are suspect from an environmental point of
view. There are other ways. One alternative is
to become knowledgeable about the natural
history of garden pests. It is an absorbing
subject and adds another layer of interest
to gardens. Without this knowledge, flower
borders may become killing fields for insects
43
 and small mammals. The infamous agent
orange, which was once used to defoliate
the jungles of Vietnam, was developed for
agricultural and horticultural purposes. Many
gardeners practise chemical warfare on a
proportionately larger scale in their back
gardens. Snails and aphids are a case in point.
In the countryside, insecticides have make
great inroads into the butterfly population.
In gardens, insecticides kill the aphids’ chief
predator, ladybirds. Another way of controlling
aphids is to encourage the ladybird population.
If particular plants remain infested, possibly
because ants are using them as aphid farms,
one can resort to an old-fashioned aphid brush
or a modern high-pressure hose.
A new neighbour once asked, with shambling
apologies, if I would mind if he asked a
question about my wife. My consent was
given: ‘Well, er, could you tell me why she
crawls around the garden in the dark with a
torch?’. ‘Thinking of the plants and collecting
snails’, I told him. While good gardeners keep
their knees on the earth, ideas can link them to
Ladybird eating aphids the great universe.

See also: Online guide to sustainable garden

design.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him

sees
That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his
knees
So when your work is finished, you can wash your
hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden, it shall never pass away!
(Rudyard Kipling)

44
Further information
The following links are to relevant sections
of the Gardenvisit.com website:-
Online guide ‘How to design a garden’
Finding and a garden designer
Commissioning a garden designer
Education in garden design
Garden Lighting
Water features, ponds and fountains
Choosing garden furniture
Choosing garden tools
Garden sculpture and ornament
Garden buildings, fences and other structures
Sustainable Design - Green design
Garden accessories
Plants and planting
Choosing materials for garden construction
Computer software for garden design
Information on garden design principles
Education courses in garden design

45
 Image credits
We would also like to thank the following for
permission to reproduce images: Wheatfield,
Max Mitenkov; Wildflower meadow, Christa
Richert; London Office, Constantin Jurcut; Tokyo
office, Paul Mata; New York office, David Lat;
Forest path, Carlos Paes; Dover cliffs, Carlos
Butler; Hearst CAstle, Heather Sorenson; Hyde
Park, New York, Eg004713/Dreamstime;robin,
Nigel Cooke; butterflies, Rcmathiraj/Dreamstime
swimming pool, Gnotzen/Dreamstime; beehive,
Sangiorzboy/Dreamstime;swing, Timpile/
Dreamstime; dirty snow, Kris Cohen; White
House, Josh Berglund;Wisley RHS Garden, David
Wilmot; cloister, Jill Robidoux; concrete blocks,
The_guitar_mann/Dreamstime; Sprinkler, Johnny
Waterman; Yellow bricks, Jay Simons; Yellow chair,
Stefan Vasilev; Mossy wall, Subhadip Mukherjee;
Sky God’s home, Hilde Vanstraelen; Chinese
mountains, Casey Wong; Barcelona Pavilion,
Kalidoskopika; Water, George Bosela; raindrops,
Chaoss/Dreamstime; leaf, Angiesart/Dreamstime;
weathervane, Webking/Dreamstime; Dubai, Jeroen
Brites; Armillary sphere, G Schouten de Jel;
Lightning, Anna Tunska; Frost, Jek Ka; Highland
Mary, Sara Parker; Peter Pan, Josemaría; Physical
Energy, Randy Escalada; Henry Moore King and
Queen, Jeff Kubina; compost, Ramsey Beyer;
Forest garden, Joe Shlabotnik; Kaaba, Mecca,
G.M Farooq; Terracotta pots, Joseph Hoban and
Kevin Walsh; Borghese Gladiator, Wikimedia
Commons, MULO; Bluebell wood, Pete Bresser;
Wild plums, Constantin Jurcut; Gooseberries, Per
Hardestam; Aphids, Billy W. Other images supplied
by Gardenvisit.com. Please notify us if if any
credits have been omitted and we will be pleased
to include them in future editions.

About the author

Tom Turner teaches garden history and landscape
design at the University of Greenwich and is the
author of:
English garden design (1986)
City as landscape (1996)
Garden history philosophy and design (2005)
The gardens of Asia (due to be published 2010)

Versailles fountain

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