Landscape Design as an Art Form

Design is an art; growing plants is a craft.

Whether designing your own landscape, relaxing in a friends garden, or visiting a public garden,
remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, the elements that make a garden
beautiful tend to follow the same principles as great art the opportunities and limitations of the
medium, theme, style, function, use of lines, and design elements. This brief overview (based
on a presentation by David Whiting of Colorado State University) will help you look at gardens
through the eyes of a landscape designer.

Site Opportunities and Limitations

When designing a landscape, the first step that a landscape architect does is a site analysis.
Whereas Italian Renaissance gardens and the Kashmiri Gardens of Love could use gravity for
rills, fountains, and cascades, designers of French Baroque and Mughal gardens had to
contend with the limitations of flat terrain. Egyptian and Islamic gardens had to be walled off to
protect the dwellings and plantings from the hostile desert environment. Bringing water into flat,
often arid, areas required irrigation channels and tanks. Castles on mountains and hills afforded
very little in the way of garden space, so plantings were limited to borders along castle walls and
ramparts. Some of the most remarkable contemporary gardens are urban pocket gardens in
small spaces between skyscrapers. Transforming a piece of land into a place of beauty that
reflects the spirit of the times involves capturing the genius of the place. It means taking
advantage of natural opportunities or capabilities and working around the sites limitations.

Theme
Every garden that is a work of art usually has one theme running throughout it. For example,
Islamic gardens were reflections of Paradise. Naturalistic English gardens were based on
paintings of the lost world of Arcadia. Palace gardens were designed to impress guests and to
give the ruler a place to show off his power and legitimacy. Modern parks offer recreational
facilities and serve as a retreat from the busy urban environment.

Style and Function

When undertaking a landscape design project, it is important to consider both style and function.

Style
The primary consideration for a landscaping project is style. What message should the property
convey? Gardens designed during the different eras that we are studying in this course have
different stylistic characteristics that convey a sense of place, such as

A quiet, sacred space for reflection,

A regal, elegant space surrounding an estate,
An inviting space for picnics and play, or
A series of secret gardens to be discovered.

Function
The function of a landscape is to enhance the way in which people will relate to the space.
What practical goals does the designer wish to achieve with the landscape? Is it a show of
power, as in the elegant gardens of Versailles or Kashmir? Is it a reaffirmation of faith or a
place for contemplation, as in a cloister garth? Is it intended for sustenance, such as an herb
garden or potager, or rather for recreation, such as a romantic secular garden or public park?

Lines
Lines define space.
Rectilinear lines harmonize with the formal style of traditional homes and buildings. For
example, in the French Baroque and Mughal periods, the gardens were built around a central
axis, affording a sweeping view of the gardens from the formal rooms. They were designed as
a logical architectural extension of the structure they served. Throughout, there is a spirit of
ordered discipline, geometric formality, and perfect equilibrium among the various components
fountains, sculptures, parterres, and architectural elements.
Curvilinear lines are used in informal, English Garden, Oriental, or woodland styles. They
reflect the idea that Nature abhors straight lines, as in the picturesque tradition of English
landscaping. One of the innovators of English garden design was Capability Brown. Brown's
technique was to impose on the English landscape ideal forms and patterns that were modeled
after nature. His gardens were artfully contrived to give a sense of informality and natural
beauty, featuring wide, green, undulating lawns and scattered clumps of trees.

Design Elements
Elements of garden design are similar to elements of design in other media such as painting,
watercolor, sculpture, and architecture. Trees, shrubs, annuals, perennials, and flowering bulbs
are integrated into the design based on principles of unity, form, texture, color, scale, proportion,
balance, simplicity, repetition, variety, focus, emphasis, sequence, and pairing opposites.
Unity is the quality of oneness. Unity is obtained by the effective use of components in a design
to express a main idea through consistent style. It attracts and holds attention, and it organizes
the entire view into orderly groups with emphasis and focus.
Form is basically the shape and structure of a plant or mass of plants. Structures such as
houses and palaces also have form and are considered as such when designing the area
around them.

Horizontal and spreading forms emphasize the extent and breadth of space.
Rounded forms are most common and lend themselves to plant grouping. Vase-shaped
trees define a pleasing people space beneath the canopy.
Weeping forms lead the eye back to the ground.
Pyramidal or columnar forms direct the eyes upwards.

Texture is the relationship between the foliage and twig size and the three-dimensional mass of
the plant. Texture describes the surface quality of an object than can be seen or felt.

At a distance, texture comes from the entire mass effect of plants and the qualities of light
and shadows (following the Italian Renaissance artistic concept of chiaroscuro).
Up close, texture comes from the size, surface, and spacing of leaves and twigs fine or
coarse.

Color gives the greatest appeal and evokes the greatest response. Can you describe your
feelings and emotions related to each color of the flowers in a garden?

Cool colors are less conspicuous, restful, recede into the distance, and have low impact.
Warm colors are conspicuous, cheerful, stimulating, appear to come forward, and have high
impact.
As a rule of thumb, a designer will use 90% green to set off the 10% of color. Note that in
the Paradise, Renaissance, and Baroque gardens, most consisted of alles of trees and
parterres of closely clipped shrubs such as myrtle or boxwood nearly 100% green.
Three basic color schemes are monochromatic, analogous and complementary. A
monochromatic color scheme consists of different tints and shades of one color and is
seldom achieved in its pure form in the landscape (except strictly green). Analogous color
schemes combine colors that are adjacent or side-by-side on the color wheel. An analogous
color scheme could include green, blue-green, green-blue, blue and violet blue.
Complementary color schemes combine colors directly across the color wheel. For example,
red and green would be complementary colors. A complementary color scheme may be
achieved by using plants with green foliage against a red brick house.

Scale refers to the size of an object or objects in relation to the surroundings. Size refers to
definite measurements, while scale describes the size relationship between adjacent objects.
The size of plantings and buildings compared on the human scale must be considered when
designing the landscape.

For example, small trees and shrubbery allow the buildings to dominate, while tall, dense
trees make a house look smaller by comparison.
Scale can also refer to the level of emotional stimulation brought about by warm or cool
colors.

Proportion refers to the size of parts of the design in relation to each other and to the design as
a whole. One large towering oak may compliment a modern office building but would probably
dwarf a suburban residence. A three-foot pool would be lost in a large open lawn but would fit
beautifully into a small private area such as a secret garden. A colossal fountain would
dominate a private garden but could enhance a large city plaza.
Balance in landscape design refers to the equilibrium or equality of visual attraction of the view
as a whole. Size is balanced by mass and texture. The theme and design should guide the type
of balance in the landscape.

Formal balance (mirror reflection about a central axis) provides stability, stateliness, and
dignity. Formal balance has been used from antiquity to the Baroque and Rococo eras.
Informal balance (equal mass on both sides, but different groupings on left vs. right side)
suggests curiosity and movement. This first became popular during the English Landscape
Revolution.

Simplicity refers to grouping and repetition, while variety involves diversity and contrast in form,
texture, and color, preventing monotony. Simplicity goes hand-in-hand with repetition and can
be achieved by elimination of unnecessary detail. Too much variety or detail creates confusion
of perception. Simplicity is the reduction of a design to its simplest, functional form.
Repetition refers to the repeated use of features like plants with identical shape, line, form,
texture and/or color. Too much repetition creates monotony but when used effectively can lead
to rhythm, focalization or emphasis. On the other hand, a good designer will not plunk plants
randomly and avoids creating a horticultural zoo.
Focus or focalization involves leading the eye toward a feature by placement of this feature at
the vanishing point between radial or approaching lines. Straight radial lines create a strong
focalization when compared to curved lines. The viewer's eye is quickly forced along straight
lines to a focal point (such as a central fountain in a formal garden).
Emphasis is dominance and subordination of elements. It is achieved through different sizes,
bold shapes, groupings, and the unusual or unexpected. Each garden room should have a
single focal point too many sculptures, unusual plants, or high-impact colors tends to confuse
the viewer and leads to an unpleasant feel for the landscape.
Rhythm or sequencing is achieved when the elements of a design create a feeling of motion
that leads the viewer's eye through or even beyond the designed area. Sequence is the change
or flow in form, color, texture, and size. Gertrude Jekyll and Penelope Hobhouse loved
gardening for its artistic effect. With their firm grounding in art, they are best known for their
majestic herbaceous borders with color schemes running from cold (white, blue) to hot (orange,
red) and back to cold again.

When sequencing with texture, a good

designer uses fine textured plants in the
distance and coarser textured plants up
closer; places larger, coarser flowering
plants at the back of the border and finer
textured, smaller plants in front; and uses
proportionally larger numbers of fine
textured plants as compared with coarse
textured plants.
When sequencing with color, the darkest
shades and purest intensity dominate
and should be used at the focal point of a
garden. Warm colors work best in
sequence, while cool colors are more effective when used in contrast.

Pairing opposites Some of the most effective plant combinations arise from pairing
fine/coarse, round/upright, small/large, short/tall, stocky/dainty plants, as well as complementary
color combinations such as yellow/purple, pink/blue, or high/low intensity flowers such as
orange/white.
Whether inspired by music, a painting, or other performing and visual arts, landscape
design can encompass art forms that capture our hearts and imaginations.