European Landscaping Ideas

French

• French garden style is controlled, geometric, sculpted according to classic ideas of balance, meticulously manicured and enhanced by fountains, pools and optical illusions. The influence of the designer of the Versailles landscape, Andre le Notre, can still be seen in formal gardens in French cities and on estates. Create your own French estate by using the house as the focal point and landscaping outward in levels or sections of specific flowers, trees and sculpted shrubs. Design the approach to the front entrance as a paved or graveled walkway lined with dark green foliage and white flowers in stone urns or planters. Place statues, small pavilions, stone steps and faux stone fountains throughout the garden areas to create an ideal version of nature. Use limestone tiles or "aged" stone pavers for a patio and plant flowers in single color groups.

Tuscan

• The Tuscan garden of Italy migrated to other parts of the world. Combine elements of formal Renaissance estate-style with the more rustic use of the land practiced for centuries by Tuscan farmers. Place an arbor of lilacs or grapes, planted urns, graveled paths and an al fresco dining area covered in climbing roses close to the house. Plant the rest of the garden with large plots of wildflowers, herbs and vegetables. Espaliered olive or fig trees along the fence or property boundary complete the sense of a sunny, sensuous climate. If your growing zone won't support those trees, a more suitable fruit tree would be a good substitute.

English Garden Rooms and Cottage Style

• English gardens overflow with colors, blooms, rich greens, mixes of plants spilling out of containers and bursting from trellises and plots. They are designed to seem like wild meadows but are really built on the "bones" of a careful plan that balances annuals and perennials, colors and greens, heights and ground cover and constant blooming so that there are no dull patches or weeks in the growing season. Flowers are key to the cottage garden and the more the better. Plant them amongst herbs and vegetables, surrounding a gazebo or climbing over a trellised entryway. Let mixed flowers ring a birdbath or radiate out from a sundial. Create a "room" in your garden by hedging an area and defining it with flowers of one color. Add low stone benches or weathered wood chairs that blend into the landscape. The trick of crowding plants in a cottage-style garden is ideal for over-scheduled American gardeners, who tend their flowers themselves, because the dense flowerbeds leave little room for weeds to grow.