French Garden Landscape

FRENCH GARDENS
GROUP-1
• BAL JIT SINGH JAYA VERMA VINAY KUMAR
• GORESH SAINI MIFZAL
• ISHIKA ARORA NITIKA PATHANIA
INTRODUCTION
1. French Garden Design, also called Jardin à la
Français, is a very formal, very ordered gardening
style with lots of straight lines and symmetry.
2. It is above all a style created to impress however we
can take ideas from this style and use it to great
effect in a domestic garden.
3. The classic French garden invokes images of bright
lavender, ordered gravel paths, calm reflecting
pools, symmetrical planting beds of boxwoods and
shrubs—maybe a stone bench waiting for someone
to rest on it.
4. French garden design closely borrow from Italian
landscapes with their similar themes of symmetry.
Moroccan courtyard gardens reflect the need for
cooling elements and protection from the elements.
5. Many French gardens include a water feature.
Mediterranean gardens almost always contain
terracotta pottery while French gardens use classic
wood planter boxes or Anduze vases.
6. English gardens with their exuberance for
abundance and flowers are the inverse of the cooler
color palette of French garden design but share a
love for native elements. All these developments
influenced each other to give us the classic French
garden.
HISTORY OF FRENCH GARDEN
1. The French garden is a classical and
symmetrical conception of the garden that
was applied on a monumental scale in
seventeenth-century France.
2. The fruit of a long tradition, it reached its
apex with the genius of Louis XIV’s principal
gardener André Le Nôtre, with creations such
as the gardens for the châteaux of Vaux-le-
Vicomte, Chantilly, and especially Versailles in
the late seventeenth century.
3. It served as a model for European courts,
which imaginatively vied with one another to
import this French know-how and integrate
the image of power it conveys.
4. The art of the French garden took root in the
Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and
Austria—combining with often powerful local
traditions—and developed throughout the
eighteenth century.
5. It is still highly present despite increasing
“competition” in Europe from landscape
gardens.
KEY FEATURES OF A FRENCH GARDEN DESIGN
•The focus of the garden tends to be the house, usually a palace or chateau and paths
radiate out of this creating long axial views.
•A geometric plan is used and symmetry is very important. A central axis leads away
from the house - perpendicular to the house.
•Paths tend to be gravel and edged with clipped hedges and topiary laid out in
symmetrical patterns.
•Water is often a key feature of French garden design and lots of round pools and long
rectangles of water will be incorporated, the reflection of the water adding to the
symmetry and tranquility of the scene. Fountains and cascades are also very common
features.
•Close to the house planting is kept low (no trees) and tends to consist of parterres.
Parterres close to the house can be quite intricately patterned and will tend to become
more simple further from the house.
•Further from the house paths are often edged with trees, these are almost always
manipulated in some way. Trees are always planted in straight lines adding perspective
and reinforcing the symmetry of the garden.
•Statuary is often used in French Garden Design. Pavilions and 'follies' are often
incorporated too.
•In the great French formal gardens there is almost always a terrace from where the
garden and its symmetry can be seen from above
ELEMENTS WITHIN FRENCH GARDENS
1. Concrete balustrade
2. Cast iron seating
3. Fountains
4. Pea gravel
5. Cast iron/wood planters
6. Simple elegant furniture
7. Natural stone
8. Glazed pots
9. Antiques
10. Columns
11. Trellises
12. Birdbaths
COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF A FRENCH GARDEN
1. The residence - Should be the number one focal point in the French landscape
style. The home is often the centre point of the design with large paths that provide
axial views.
2. Geometric plan - Virtually everything in the design is geometric and planned with
symmetry.
3. Water - Is incorporated as a number one element within the landscape. Referred to
as “reflecting pools” in circular, oval and rectangular shapes.
4. Parterres -The intricate patterns created from hedged shrubs or planting beds are
usually designed in near proximity to the residence. These designs are less detailed
the further away they are from the house.
5. Statuary -Is a key feature as your making your way through the French garden.
During the rise of the French garden design era, Follies were introduced as a type of
statuary in the garden. A folly is a building constructed for decoration, the point was
to create these garden ornaments that were beyond the typical garden sculpture.
6. Terraces - Are located in the landscape where the entire garden and all of its detail
can be viewed.
CASE EXAMPLES
GARDENS OF VERSAILLES
VAUX-LE-VICOMTE
GARDENS OF VERSAILLLES
1. The gardens of Versailles were planned by André Le

Nôtre, perhaps the most famous and influential
landscape architect in French history.
2. Behind the palace, the ground falls away on every
side from a terrace adorned with ornamental
basins, statues, and bronze groups. Directly west of
the terrace is the Latona Fountain, designed by Le
Nôtre.
3. A broad avenue centered on the grass of the Green
Carpet, it is flanked by rows of large trees and ends
at the spectacular Fountain of Apollo. Beyond the
fountain, the line of walk is continued by the Grand
Canal, a 200-foot wide and 1-mile long waterway.
4. They were the largest gardens in the Europe- area
around 15,000 hec. And were laid out on east-west
axis followed the course of the sun.
5. The views and perspectives to and from the palace
continued to infinity
6. The central symbol of the garden was the sun.
VAUX-LE-VICOMTE
1. Vaux-le-Vicomte’s garden is the seminal expression

of the Jardin à la française, the French aesthetic of
formal gardens that swept Europe in the 17th
century.
2. Carved from 33 hectares (100 acres) of woodlands,
the formal gardens were laid out along a three-
kilometer axis to create a stunning setting for the
château and its outbuildings.
3. Working in close collaboration, Le Nôtre and the
architect Louis Le Vau produced the greatest 17th
century example of near perfect harmony between
nature and the built environment.
4. The symmetry attained at Vaux achieved a degree
of perfection and unity rarely equaled in the art of
classic gardens.
5. The chateau is at the center of this strict spatial
organization which symbolizes power and success.
THANK YOU!!!

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FRENCH GARDENS

1. The gardens of Versailles were planned by André Le

1. Vaux-le-Vicomte’s garden is the seminal expression

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