English Gardens: Garden Design Style

This strange amalgam, the Victorian garden, was the result of a liaison in the Englishman's character of a love for the countryside and a taste for ceremonial. The Englishman never really knows if he wants to be a farmer or a soldier. The favourite woodland scene of remembered childhood picnics combined with the flower beds of Kensington Gardens to produce one of the least praised of the national compromises. It is true that these gardens lacked the sensitive and delicately adjusted relationships which only the eye trained to distinguish subtleties of hue and texture can discern. But they were certainly not without merit and personality. Other tools than a hairpin can open a safe, and if these gardens lacked subtlety they had other qualities. Seclusion was their greatest strength. But the cause of their seclusion, the encircling shrubbery, also gave by its contrasted tones and textures and because of the long shadows thrown at dawn and dusk a more effective setting to the English lawn than ever before. Their evergreen ramparts gave them a timelessness that even ephemeral bedding-out schemes could not dispel. They encircled and protected a world of green shadows, of croquet, and of afternoon tea.