In article , Sacha
writes

I think you have indeed sparked off a discussion. This is gardening
history, after all. It sounds extremely interesting and as I said before, I
do hope we'll hear more about the finished project.


Do architects ever consider contemporary garden fashion when they design
houses?
When considering the outside view I wondered if the conifer years or the
bedding plant era had any influence on how the house might look in its
environment.

Janet
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

On 29/3/07 09:43, in article , "Janet Tweedy"
wrote:

In article , Sacha
writes

Some very good ideas here, I'd say. This could turn into rather a fine
'local interest' project, involving families whose ancestors lived there at
the time, locaL archives, newspaper photos etc. I hope we'll learn of the
outcome on here because it seems to be a fascinating subject.


Many TV gardeners started by creating the massed bedding schemes that
used to be in most parks. I am fairly sure Alan Titchmarsh said he used
to pot up thousands of small bedding plants as did that 'cockney'
presenter Phil something or other.

Janet

The use that 'preformed' stuff now, don't they? I think Kernock Park Plants
do a lot of that sort of bedding for floral clocks etc.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)

In article , Sacha
writes

The use that 'preformed' stuff now, don't they?

Bit like buying five yards of library books for an authentic
aristocratic air to the old drawing room, what?



--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

On 29 Mar, 09:46, Janet Tweedy wrote:
Do architects ever consider contemporary garden fashion when they design
houses?

Yes they do, but not all of them. Two great architects that I know off
do, Libeskind and Piano, both are very influence by the surrounding,
sometimes far too much in the case of Libeskind where emotions and
history is always very important to him but not necessarily to his
clients and the citizens. The third best practice to do this is us,
off course.

When I managed 5 environmental art projects on the first park to be
created in Manchester since Victoria, the environment was very
important, but more important were it's people and its history. Since
the housing was entirely new build, we were influenced by the new
designs. Your question is very interesting though, because this is
precisely what is missing at the moment - the practicalities of
gardens on new housing, and more to the point all the particulars of
the site, wind, temperature, water, orientation, size, design and the
soil!! The later is one of my biggest angst - I am so angered by
seeing the state of the new build gardens when the prices of houses do
not really reflect the state of the gardens when they are fill with
rubbles, rubbish top soil and left to the new owners/tenants to spend
a fortune on it's creation or in many many cases, just left as a sad
overgrown lifeless back yard.

This is what I am concentrating on and I look forward to the day when
we can offer interesting gardens on new built to people, at least some
kind of 'starter kit' gardens. If we do this, we can integrate new
communities with the natural fabric, their environment, offering some
sort of guidelines, some sort of ethic of care, using (historically
appropriate - perhaps) local materials, planting native plants,
respecting the local ecology so that we all can contribute towards
greener, healthier and happier communities.

When considering the outside view I wondered if the conifer years or the
bedding plant era had any influence on how the house might look in its
environment.

There were victorian guidelines for cemeteries and for housing too.
Thought the choice of plants were usually to show one's wealth rather
than for fashion as such. Hence the creation of so many arboratum and
follies.

On 29/3/07 12:35, in article , "Janet Tweedy"
wrote:

In article , Sacha
writes

The use that 'preformed' stuff now, don't they?

Bit like buying five yards of library books for an authentic
aristocratic air to the old drawing room, what?



Yes, I've actually seen that advertised!
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)

"Howard Haigh" wrote
I'm asking this on behalf of a friend who is engaged in an art project and
she would like to know what plants would have appeared in Victorian public
parks - well actually in one particular public park (Peel Park in Salford,
opened in 1846). From what I can see the Victorians were keen on colourful
borders but some of you out there might know a lot more and could name a
few
plants.

The best clue to what grew there originally is probably taken from the
existing trees of the right age , but I'd be fairly sure that the Victorian
style of the time for this garden was probably what is known as the
"Gardenesque" Style. It seems to me that it was the most favoured style for
public parks of that era around the world for those who wanted to be "up to
the minute".

The main features of this style as far as I can remember it was the use of
exotic trees - less emphasis on bedding on more on trees and paths and
features such as grottos and water features. Don't quote me on this but I'm
trying to remember the many Public gardens, cemeteries (a good source for
this style) and botanic gardens I've been in which were made at that time
and which have been little chaged in the intervening time - most of this
have been in Australia. Some interesting trees such as Araucarias featured
along with more common stuff like camphor laurels and cyprsses. They also
featured structures for sitting in and viewing the surrounds.

It may sound silly but Australia has many gardens etc which were made at
that time and many of them have survived intact in terms of the tree
planting if not the finer features like the curvy paths, fountains and
island beds. One other thing that also applied in Australia at that time was
the desire to be up with the rest of the world at a boom time here and the
parks and gardens were built but over time were left to their own devices by
simple neglect and they stayed that way until they began to be appreciated
in the latter part of the 20th century so they were seldom changed or
encrouched upon because there was no population pressures to take over the
desirable land and because our European history is so short in comparison to
the UK these gardens are now Heritage listed and protected, looked after
well and much written about.

I do remember that Loudon was one of the names associated with Gardenesque
styling but beyond that I can recall nothing about him.

The following cites may help your friend (or not as the case may be):
One superb gardenesque (and Edwardian) design is at a place called Rookwood
Necropolis which is the largest cemetery in the Southern Hemisphere ( a mere
700 acres):
http://www.strathfieldhistory.org.au/Rookwood.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1358888.htm

This site seems to be very useful if the park was in the Gardenesque style:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:...nk&cd=38&gl=au