Post category: House Style

 

House Style

 

The garden should always match the style of the house. Old houses should have something of the garden style appropriate to their age. Of course, it may not be possible to restore this exactly, because labour was very cheap then, but some few features of the fashion of former days will look right.

 

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A Victorian house might, for example, have some dark broad-leaved evergreens, hedges, a gravelled path or two, and some small box-edged flower beds.

A modern house would look ridiculous with those garden features. It should have a free-flowing style – a few well-chosen, carefully placed trees; good-sized groups of mixed planting, lots of ground-cover and some dramatic individual plants. This is a ‘clean’, modern style in keeping with modern architecture.

A large house will need big plants to balance it. However, on a restricted site, a lot can be done with creepers and tall, narrow trees to make a large house sit more comfortably.

 

Garden style

 

Although the style should match the house, this is really a matter of personal taste. Usually, the taste that informs the choice of home fittings and decoration will exert the same influence on the garden.There are as many styles as there are people but the choice might resemble one of the following types: a simple, strong style (paving and a few plants), a quiet, retiring style (lawn, hedges and rose beds), a brash, show-off style (lots of bright bedding and window boxes), or a fussy, homely style (lots of pale coloured flowers and bulbs, mixed with shrubs).