Pleasure Grounds, Naturalism and Beyond

In Episode 2, we discover that in the English landscape garden geometric structures, alleys, and parterres near the house were eliminated and replaced with rolling lawns and extensive views out to isolated groups of trees, making the landscape seem even larger as designers sought to create an ideal landscape out of the English countryside. Artificial lakes, dams and canals transformed streams or springs into the illusion that a river flowed through the garden.

The formality of neat structured lines returned to Victorian gardens but were supplanted again in the 20th with gardeners such as Gertrude Jekyll, Vita Sackville-West and Christopher Lloyd providing the inspiration for many English gardens today.

Now in the 21st Century the self-sustaining philosophy of the new perennial garden has taken centre stage in many of the country’s showpiece gardens.