The Design of Formal French Gardens

The Garden Style of Versailles and Other Famous Gardens of France

Jun 2, 2009

The design of formal French gardens is, above all, to impress; many of the great gardens of France, most notably Versailles, follow this particular garden style.

Formal French gardens were originally influenced by the Italian style of gardens; French renaissance gardens were very similar to those of the Italian renaissance. Formal gardens of the renaissance period (late 15th to early 17th century) where designed to express power and strength and consequently many of the royal gardens of France reflected this formal garden style. However, the French incorporated some ideas of their own into the Italian design; one of the most influential French garden designers in achieving the formal French style was Andre Le Notre.

French Renaissance Garden Style

Gardens of the French renaissance were designed to be both symmetrical and geometrical; paths and walkways were carefully laid out with the inclusion of elaborate water features and many statues. French renaissance gardens differed from the Italian renaissance gardens through the inclusion of a parterre; symmetrical hedges of boxwood were common in the creation of a parterre.

The French Design of Parterres and Broderies

The French expanded on the Italian idea of the knot garden by creating a broderie; a broderie was an intricate planting design which looked like a piece of embroidery. Jacques Mollet, a gardener at the Chateau d'Anet, was said to create the first parterre de broderie in the 16th century. Parterres continued to be the focus of formal French garden design and were a feature of the Jardins des Tuileries in Paris, designed by Pierre Le Notre, grandfather of Andre Le Notre.

The Influence of Andre Le Notre on Formal French Garden Design

The garden heritage of the Le Notre family ran deep in the service of the French royal family; Andre Le Notre (1613 – 1700) was the son of the head gardener at the Jardins des Tuileries. In addition, Andre Le Notre studied fine art in Paris and the combination of both disciplines resulted in some of the most influential garden designs of France and the rest of Europe.

The French Garden Style of Versailles

The French gardens of Versailles are the most famous of Andre Le Notre's formal French designs. The gardens of Versailles contain magnificent parterres, statues, water features (including large fountains and a canal) and an orangerie. Andre Le Notre designed the elaborate Versailles gardens, in conjunction with King Louis XIV, between 1661 and 1700; Louis XIV also added a potager garden of herbs, aromatic flowers, fruit trees and vegetables.

Other additions to the formal French gardens were created after this period, including the Petit Trianon; it was said that Marie Antoinette, who spent a lot of time at the Petit Trianon, actually preferred the wilder, less formal style gardens of the Petit Trianon over the more formal French garden style.

Plants of a Formal French Garden

The focus of formal French gardens is not, in fact, the plants; the grand house or royal palace is the center piece of the formal French garden, with the addition of pathways, water features and statues radiating out. Trees and hedging line pathways and borders in a symmetrical fashion; plants used for this purpose include boxwood, lavender and rosemary.

'Structured', low -growing plants and shrubs are the key to a formal French garden, unlike those found in a country cottage garden; Louis XIV introduced exotic plants into the formal French gardens at Versailles, through the many plant expeditions which left Europe in search of foreign shores, marking the beginning of the introduction and naturalization of 'new' plants in Europe.

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The copyright of the article The Design of Formal French Gardens in Botany is owned by Sharon Falsetto. Permission to republish The Design of Formal French Gardens in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.