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Landscape Design as an Art Form
“Design is an art; growing plants is a craft.”
Whether designing your own landscape, relaxing in a friend’s garden, or visiting a public garden,
remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, the elements that make a garden
beautiful tend to follow the same principles as great art – the opportunities and limitations of the
medium, theme, style, function, use of lines, and design elements. This brief overview (based
on a presentation by David Whiting of Colorado State University) will help you look at gardens
through the eyes of a landscape designer.
Site Opportunities and Limitations
When designing a landscape, the first step that a landscape architect does is a site analysis.
Whereas Italian Renaissance gardens could use gravity for rills, fountains, and spectacular
waterfalls, designers of French Baroque and Moghul gardens had to contend with the limitations
of flat terrain. Egyptian and Islamic gardens had to be walled off to protect the dwellings and
plantings from the hostile desert environment. Bringing water into flat, often arid, areas required
irrigation channels and tanks. Castles on mountains and hills afforded very little in the way of
garden space, so plantings were limited to borders along castle walls and ramparts. Some of
the most remarkable contemporary gardens are urban “pocket gardens” in small spaces
between skyscrapers. Transforming a piece of land into a place of beauty involves capturing
“the genius of the place,” including taking advantage of natural opportunities or “capabilities,”
and working around the site’s limitations.
Theme
Every garden that is a work of art usually has one theme running throughout it. For example,
Islamic gardens were reflections of Paradise. English landscape gardens were based on
paintings of the legendary Arcadia of ancient Greece. Palace gardens were designed to
impress guests and to give the ruler a place to show off his power and legitimacy. Modern
parks offer recreational facilities and serve as a retreat from the busy urban environment.
Style and Function
When undertaking a landscape design project, two important considerations are style and
function.
Style
The primary consideration for a landscaping project is style. What message should the property
convey? Gardens designed during the different eras that we are studying in this course have
different stylistic characteristics that convey a “sense of place,” such as
A quiet, sacred space for reflection,
A regal, elegant space surrounding an estate,
An inviting space for picnics and play, or
A series of secret gardens to be discovered.
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Function
The function of a landscape is to enhance the way in which people will relate to the space.
What practical goals does the designer wish to achieve with the landscape? Is it a show of
power, as in the elegant gardens of Versailles or Peterhof? Is it a reaffirmation of faith or a
place for contemplation, as in a cloister garth? Is it intended for sustenance, such as an herb
garden or potager, or rather for recreation, such as a romantic secular garden?
Lines
Lines define space.
Rectilinear lines harmonize with the formal style of traditional homes and buildings. For
example, in the French Baroque period, the gardens were built around a central axis, affording a
sweeping view of the gardens from the formal rooms. Throughout the gardens of Vaux-le-
Vicomte, which were designed by André Le Nôtre as a logical architectural extension of the
structure they served, there is a spirit of ordered discipline, geometric formality, and perfect
equilibrium among the various components – fountains, sculptures, parterres, and architectural
elements.
Curvilinear lines are used in informal, English Garden, Oriental, or woodland styles. They
reflect Mother Nature’s lack of straight lines, as in the picturesque tradition of English
landscaping. One of the grand masters of English garden design was “Capability” Brown.
Brown's technique was to impose on the English landscape ideal forms and patterns that were
modeled after nature. His gardens were artfully contrived to give a sense of informality and
“natural” beauty, featuring wide, green, undulating lawns and scattered clumps of trees.
Design Elements
Elements of garden design are similar to elements of design in other media such as painting,
watercolor, sculpture, and architecture. Trees, shrubs, annuals, perennials, and flowering bulbs
are integrated into the design based on principles of unity, form, texture, color, scale, proportion,
balance, simplicity, repetition, variety, focus, emphasis, sequence, and pairing opposites.
Unity is the quality of oneness. Unity is obtained by the effective use of components in a design
to express a main idea through consistent style. It attracts and holds attention, and it organizes
the entire view into orderly groups with emphasis and focus.
Form is basically the shape and structure of a plant or mass of plants. Structures such as
houses and palaces also have form and are considered as such when designing the area
around them.
Horizontal and spreading forms emphasize the extent and breadth of space.
Rounded forms are most common and lend themselves to plant grouping. Vase-shaped
trees define a pleasing “people space” beneath the canopy.
Weeping forms lead the eye back to the ground.
Pyramidal or columnar forms direct the eyes upwards.
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Texture is the relationship between the foliage and twig size and the three-dimensional mass of
the plant. Texture describes the surface quality of an object than can be seen or felt.
At a distance, texture comes from the entire mass effect of plants and the qualities of light
and shadows (chiaroscuro).
Up close, texture comes from the size, surface, and spacing of leaves and twigs – fine or
coarse.
Color gives the greatest appeal and evokes the greatest response. Can you describe your
feelings and emotions related to each color of the flowers in a garden?
Cool colors are less conspicuous, restful, recede into the distance, and have low scale
(impact). Warm colors are conspicuous, cheerful, stimulating, appear to come forward, and
have high scale.
As a rule of thumb, a designer will use 90% green to set off the 10% of color. Note that in
the Renaissance and well into the Baroque, most gardens consisted of allées of trees and
parterres of closely clipped shrubs such as boxwood – nearly 100% green.
Three basic color schemes are monochromatic, analogous and complementary. A
monochromatic color scheme consists of different tints and shades of one color and is
seldom achieved in its pure form in the landscape. Analogous color schemes combine
colors that are adjacent or side-by-side on the color wheel. An analogous color scheme
could include green, blue-green, green-blue, blue and violet blue. Complementary color
schemes combine colors directly across the color wheel. For example, red and green would
be complementary colors. A complementary color scheme may be achieved by using plants
with green foliage against a red brick house.
Scale refers to the size of an object or objects in relation to the surroundings. Size refers to
definite measurements, while scale describes the size relationship between adjacent objects.
The size of plantings and buildings compared on the human scale must be considered when
designing the landscape.
For example, small trees allow the buildings to dominate, while tall, dense trees make a
house look smaller by comparison.
Scale can also refer to the level of emotional stimulation brought about by warm or cool
colors.
Proportion refers to the size of parts of the design in relation to each other and to the design as
a whole. One large towering oak may compliment a modern office building but would probably
dwarf a single story residence. A three-foot pool would be lost in a large open lawn but would fit
beautifully into a small private area such as a secret garden. A colossal fountain would
dominate a private garden but could enhance a large city plaza.
Balance in landscape design refers to the equilibrium or equality of visual attraction of the view
as a whole. Size is balanced by mass and texture. The theme and design should guide the type
of balance in the landscape.
Formal balance (“mirror reflection” about a central axis) provides stability, stateliness, and
dignity. Formal balance has been used from antiquity to the Baroque and Rococo eras.
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Informal balance (equal mass on both sides, but different groupings on left vs. right side)
suggests curiosity and movement. This first became popular during the English landscape
revolution.
Simplicity refers to grouping and repetition, while variety involves diversity and contrast in form,
texture, and color, preventing monotony. Simplicity goes hand-in-hand with repetition and can
be achieved by elimination of unnecessary detail. Too much variety or detail creates confusion
of perception. Simplicity is the reduction of a design to its simplest, functional form.
Repetition refers to the repeated use of features like plants with identical shape, line, form,
texture and/or color. Too much repetition creates monotony but when used effectively can lead
to rhythm, focalization or emphasis. On the other hand, a good designer will not “plunk” plants
randomly and avoids creating a horticultural “zoo.”
Focus or focalization involves the leading of visual observation toward a feature by placement of
this feature at the vanishing point between radial or approaching lines. Straight radial lines
create a strong focalization when compared to curved lines. The viewer's eye is quickly forced
along straight lines to a focal point (such as a central fountain in a formal garden).
Emphasis is dominance and subordination of elements. It is achieved through different sizes,
bold shapes, groupings, and the unusual or unexpected. Each garden “room” should have a
single focal point – too many sculptures, unusual plants, or high-scale colors tends to confuse
the viewer and leads to an unpleasant “feel” for the landscape.
Rhythm or sequencing is achieved when the elements of a design create a feeling of motion
that leads the viewer's eye through or even beyond the designed area. Sequence is the change
or flow in form, color, texture, and size. Gertrude Jekyll – whom you will learn about later –
loved gardening for its artistic effect. She is best known for huge herbaceous borders with color
schemes running from cold (white, blue) to hot (orange, red) and back to cold again. Through
her extensive training in the arts, Gertrude developed a keen eye for color and proportion,
highlighting experience, smell, and texture as important components of the artistry that is
gardening.
When sequencing with texture, a good designer uses fine textured plants in the distance
and coarser textured plants up closer; places larger, coarser flowering plants at the back of
the border and finer textured, smaller plants in front; and uses proportionally larger numbers
of fine textured plants as compared with coarse textured plants.
When sequencing with color, the darkest shades and purest intensity dominate and should
be used at the focal point of a garden. Warm colors work best in sequence, while cool
colors are more effective when used in contrast.
Pairing opposites – Some of the most effective plant combinations arise from pairing
fine/coarse, round/upright, small/large, short/tall, stocky/dainty plants, as well as complementary
color combinations such as yellow/purple, pink/blue, or high/low intensity flowers such as
orange/white.
“Whether inspired by music, a painting, or other performing and visual arts, landscape
design can encompass art forms that capture our hearts and imaginations.”