Style Notes Edition Four
French Garden
With summer just around the corner, it’s time to get outdoor spaces and entertaining areas into shape. The joy of sharing outside spaces and feeling connected to your place and its natural rhythms brings an honest and simple sense of well-being. Whether you have a small corner courtyard, or an expansive lawn, it’s easy to bring a little ‘joie de vivre’ to your outside space this season.
At its heart symmetry and order underpin the French Garden. Versailles is the perfect case in point! While this former royal residence may seem less relevant to today’s garden, there are certainly many tried and true lessons to learn from the French Garden.
Structure and symmetry can be offset by shabbi-ness and asymmetry. Repeat planting gives a sense of deliberate order as do tightly clipped and tailored hedging and buxus; and this can be balanced with the softness of more rambling plants such as roses, climbers, and irises.
Add decoratives! Just as the French interior lends itself to architectural and sculptural pieces so too does the garden. Take finials, statues, and obelisks outside and let them weather. A rusty iron obelisk, planter or even table is a wonderful juxtaposition to the soft, green living texture of a garden.
If you can’t go out, can you go up! Use your walls for mirrors, and wall planters. Mirrors create an immediate sense of space, this rustic yet elaborate mirror below is our pick of the season, while planters give the space a sense of depth, and a natural unruly feel.
Large, small, traditional, simple. The perfect container to plant the perfect French plant – the topiary. Topiary like buxus, loves a good pot and so do we! This season we have a beautiful collection of terracotta and light stone pots, the most versatile garden companion.