Flowers galore

The garden style that resonated most strongly with me this semester was the arts and crafts garden. My favorite part of gardens has always been the plants and flowers. Although I really do appreciate the statues and sculptures and water features, whenever I think about gardens, I immediately think flowers and beautiful flower arrangements. I have always connected and loved looking at arrangements of flowers. I think this love for planting flowers and plants comes from my mom and all of the summers we spent at the greenhouse picking out different kinds of flowers and plants to put in the garden around our house. I remember watching my mom plant flowers for days when I was little and it is still so shocking to me how much hard work is put into making a garden and a beautiful arrangement of flowers. 

In arts and crafts gardens specifically I love how Gertrude Jekyll 'painted' with flowers and made such beautiful painterly gardens. All of the gardens from her are absolutely beautiful and you can tell how much hard work was put into them to make them look this way. I also love how closely Lutyens worked with her. Although I am not very familiar with architecture, I can really tell from all of his designs that he put a lot of work into them and worked directly with Jekyll to place the buildings/houses in the right locations with the gardens.A few of my favorite by Jekyll are the Holy Island Lindisfarne because the colors are absolutely beautiful and you can just see how intricate the detail is in the planting. The manor garden also shows how beautiful Jekylls work is and how the flowers just seem to go together.

Manor house

Lindisfarne

This semester in this course I have learned about and seen many different kinds of gardens. Out of all of the gardens we studied I am still very interested in flowery/plant filled gardens. I especially like the arts and crafts gardens because I really like how they come from the cottage idea. I have always been very into 'cutesy' little cottages and cabins and the intricate little decorations and gardens. I think the most important part about these arts and crafts gardens and Jekyll and Lutyens is that they make the architecture and gardens look so effortless when it was very hard work. Although I still like flowery gardens the best, I am very happy I took this course and learned about garden art in European culture as I have gained a new appreciation for many of these styles and designs.

Flowers and plants really just seem to liven up a garden and make it pop with color and excitement which is why I resonate so much with these arts and crafts gardens and specifically Jekyll's beautiful designs.

Example of a beautiful arrangement of flowers by Jekyll

For more practical information on arts and crafts gardens view my blog 9. Thanks for reading :)

Pictures:
http://www.gardenvisit.com/uploads/image/image/862/86228/holy_island_lindisfarne_jekyll_garden_original.jpg
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/498add27-3762-4bdc-bdbe-049142f2e5c0.img
http://www.gertrudejekyllgarden.co.uk/images/pitch-4.jpg