{"id":4931,"date":"2023-03-05T17:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-03-05T22:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.siteandinsight.com\/?p=4931"},"modified":"2023-03-05T17:00:47","modified_gmt":"2023-03-05T22:00:47","slug":"garden-favourites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/garden-favourites\/","title":{"rendered":"Garden Favourites"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I prepare for another season at Glen Villa Art Garden, I’ve been thinking about other gardens I’ve visited. What lessons can I take from them, that I can adapt and apply to my own?<\/p>\n

Asking those questions has led me to reflect on something different. Why do some gardens stand out as clearly as if I visited them yesterday while others have become a blur? In effect, what makes a garden memorable?<\/p>\n

Memorable does not necessarily equal good… a disaster of a garden may well stick in the mind because of its faults. But more often than not, a memorable garden has some quality that keeps it fresh in the mind. Maybe it’s the plantings.<\/p>\n

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\"The

The richness of the plantings at Malverleys make this garden memorable.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Maybe it’s the weather …<\/p>\n

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A sunny day at Little Sparta, the Scottish garden created by Ian Hamilton Finlay, allowed this couple to soak up the sun.<\/p><\/div>\n

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or\u00a0who you happened to be with.<\/p>\n

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A day at Hampton Court remains clear in my mind because I visited it with my sister and a very old friend.<\/p><\/div>\n

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But maybe it’s something more elusive, some combination of qualities that makes one garden stand out from the others.<\/p>\n

Personal preferences come into play, since people respond to different qualities and styles.<\/p>\n

I like plants and seeing the impact of different design combinations. I like historic gardens as well as contemporary ones, formality as well as informality. I like originality and gardens that incorporate art. I like gardens that use words to expand the garden’s scope and the viewer’s mind. But most of all, I like gardens that are meaningful as well as beautifully floriiferous, gardens that contain some ineffable element that is hard to describe.<\/p>\n

So what are some of my favourite gardens? When I started this post, I intended to include gardens from many different countries. But I quickly discovered that the list was too long for a single blog post. Instead, I’ve limited the list to a baker’s dozen from the UK.<\/p>\n

I haven’t listed the gardens in order of priority, since each stands out for a different reason. Nor are they arranged historically or in any other systematic way. They simply appear where they appear.<\/p>\n

Here’s the list. Take from it what you will.<\/p>\n

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  1. Veddw,<\/a> for the multiple visits where friendships were formed and history is honoured.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    2. Rousham<\/a>, for its ability to make time appear to stand still.<\/p>\n

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    3. Levans Hall<\/a>, where the past remains present in a way that feels light-hearted and contemporary.<\/p>\n

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    4. The Garden of Cosmic Speculation<\/a>, for its name and its extraordinary land forms.<\/p>\n

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    5. Hestercombe<\/a>, where the combined talents of Lutyens and Jekyll are laid out before our eyes.<\/p>\n

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    6. Plaz Metaxu<\/a>, for its brave individuality and its mysterious glimpses into other ways of seeing.<\/p>\n

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    7. Iford Manor<\/a>, for the way it incorporates Italian design and art into a rural English setting.<\/p>\n

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    8. Little Sparta<\/a>, for the way it uses words to inform and illustrate.<\/p>\n

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    9. Kennedy Memorial<\/a> at Runnymede, for the simple and forceful allusions it makes.<\/p>\n

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    10. Linton House<\/a> in Richmond, Yorkshire, for a design that melds ruins and contemporary plantings to the advantage of both.<\/p>\n

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    11. Scampston Hall<\/a>, for the inventiveness of repeated elements.<\/p>\n

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    12. Througham Court<\/a>, for the discussion it provoked after a group I was leading visited it.<\/p>\n

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    13. Broadwoodside<\/a>, for its delightful combination of humour and outstanding horticulture.<\/p>\n

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    The difficulty with any list is ending it. You may notice that I haven’t included some of the best known and most iconic gardens. This isn’t because I don’t like them or find them inspiring. I do. Visiting Great Dixter or Sissinghurst, for instance, is always rewarding and I have clear memories of multiple visits to both. I also have remarkably clear memories of several gardens I visited where photography was not allowed.<\/p>\n

    But the gardens I’ve named stand out in special ways, so they are the ones that made my list.<\/p>\n

    I have equally clear lists of American, Canadian and European gardens and I may single out a few in the weeks to come.<\/p>\n

    What are your favourite gardens? I’d love to know which stand out in your memory, and why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As I prepare for another season at Glen Villa Art Garden, I’ve been thinking about other gardens I’ve visited. What lessons can I take from them, that I can adapt and apply to my own? Asking those questions has led me to reflect on something different. Why do some gardens stand out as clearly as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,22,23],"tags":[474,967,411,1166,59,203,593,1167,1165,476,710,61,505,252,1164,362],"class_list":["post-4931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design","category-reviews","category-travel","tag-broadwoodside","tag-favourite-gardens","tag-garden-of-cosmic-speculation","tag-geoffrey-jellicoe","tag-hestercombe","tag-iford-manor","tag-kennedy-memorial","tag-levans-hall","tag-linton-house","tag-little-sparta","tag-plaz-metaxu","tag-rousham","tag-scampston-hall","tag-througham-court","tag-uk-gardens","tag-veddw","category-24","category-22","category-23","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}