Subject: Re: ## Gardens in Europe? ##

From: [email-masked] (Glenn M. Berntson)
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 1995 09:21:53 -0400

Givenchy, the garden that Monet painted in, is just outside of Paris.  I
have yet to go there myself, but I have heard wonderful things about the
grounds there.  Cambridge University has a very large botanical garden
that even looked nice at Christmas time, when I visited it.  Happy
travelling!

Glenn

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Allan
Young) wrote:

> Hello-
> 
> My wife Kari and I are travelling to Europe this summer, and would like to
> visit as many gardens as possible.
> 
> Do any of you have any great European garden recommendations?
> 
> We'll be visiting Britain, France, Switzerland, and Italy.
> 
> -Allan
> 
> (Our personal favorite so far is Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C.)

---

From: [email-masked] (L. R. Fortney)
Date: 28 Mar 1995 12:48:12 GMT

> (Our personal favorite so far is Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C.)

   There is a very pleasant garden just across the road from Lake Geneva
in Geneva near the UN buildings, about a mile north of city center.  I
mostly remember the rock garden areas and a planted wall bordering a
railroad track.  The whole waterfront area north of city center is quite
nice and the garden occupies parts of a large park.
   In my opinion, Butchart is to a real garden as Disneyland is to a real
castle.  It contains too many "set-out" plants and far too few established
borders, rock gardens, and walls.

-- 
Lloyd Fortney ---Opinions, just opinions---

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 27 Mar 95 19:56:22 -0600

> (Our personal favorite so far is Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C.)

Well, my pick of the British garden that would be most like
Butchart is Bodnant, in Wales.  Good variety of materials, 
nice attention to detail, and form, and mass and color, and
just a very pleasant day.  I was there  in July, and missed the
Wisteria arbor in flower, much to my regret.

Hidcote and Sissinghurst and some of the Capability Brown gardens
are well worth it from the standpoint of the evolution of
landscape architectural styles.  (do watch out for the ha-has,
though).

In London, you need to go to Kew, an easy trip by tube.  It's the
mecca of the botanical world.  Bring a picnic lunch.  Wear good
shoes.  Prepare to spend at least all day (I've been there 4 times,
and still haven't seen all the houses and plantings).  Wisley,
the Royal Horticultural Society Garden, is a lot of fun, and
it's a day trip out from London.  You can catch a bus from 
Victoria, and it will drop you off about a block from the gate,
and pick you up at the end of your foot-tiring day.

In London itself, the Chelsea Physic Garden is the oldest botanical
garden still in existance, and I enjoyed my trip to this small
garden of great historical significance, but it is perhaps not
of great interest to landscape enthusiasts.  I also *tremendously*
enjoyed my visit to the Tradescant Garden/Museum of Garden History
at St. Mary's Lambeth.  The garden itself is tiny, and rather crammed,
and the exhibits when I was there a couple of years ago were
rather temporary-looking, but it is a very young museum with its
roots in a very old garden.  The Tradescants were a father and
son who were "the King's Gardeners", and made several trips to
Russia and the New World, bringing back new plants for old world
gardens: quite an accomplishment in the 17th-18th century!  The
odds and ends of souveniers they collected were purchased by
Ashmole and donated to Oxford University as the nucleus of The
Ashmolean museum; the remains of their collection is displayed
in a special room of the Ashmolean (Oxford took poor care of the
collections and burned much of it, including most of the only
dodo specimen (we have a foot of that specimen; there are no
others).  Sketches of that particular dodo served as a model for
Tenniel's drawings in Lewis Carroll's _Alice in Wonderland_.)
The Tradescants are buried at St. Mary's Lambeth, a disused
church that houses the museum, just across the Thames from the
houses of Parliament.  Another famous body in the churchyard
is Captain Bligh, of Mutiny on the Bounty fame.  His tomb is
capped with a breadfruit, which, of course, played a major
part in the Bounty mutiny.

And if you're in London on a Sunday morning, go to the street
flower market, if it hasn't been discontinued.  The information
folks at the Tube can provide you with directions.  It's been
a couple of years since I was there, and it was threatened with
being shut down by the local council because it was a traffic nuisance,
but it was a tremendous amount of fun for me.  I nearly cried
because so many nice plants were being sold so cheaply, like
8 6" pots of cyclamen, blooming, for about $4 US.  Wished I
could have smuggled them in under my coat!

The Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh is a must-go, in my opinion.
The plants are very well maintained, and have a good variety
of plants.  The rock gardens are especially beautiful, and,
unlike most gardens in Britain, it is open until dusk.  They do
toss you out then... I've been tossed out of that garden twice,
and still haven't seen it all!  8-)

I've not been to continental gardens, but I have it on good authority
that the Jardins des Plantes (sorry, the spelling is probably 
atrocious) is fun.  In the 1970's they still had a 200+ year
old tree of Robinia pseudo-acacia (black locust), gnarled and propped,
and (if I recall correctly, the product of one of the Tradescant
journeys to North America).  Does anyone know if that tree still
survives?

Kay Klier  [email-masked]

The Oxford Botanical Garden is worth a stroll, and don't
forget to peek in on the private gardens of the colleges there.

---

From: [email-masked] (Ute R.Willmore)
Date: 28 Mar 1995 16:31:18 GMT

Allan Young ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Do any of you have any great European garden recommendations?
: We'll be visiting Britain, France, Switzerland, and Italy.

Well, you are not going to Germany, but you'll be close to it anyway.
So, when/if you are near Lake Konstance, cross the border to Germany and
visit the island Mainau. Beautiful botanical garden, large park to stroll
through, excellent orchid house.
The island climat is milder then the climat of the surrounding areas
and the only place north of the alps where they grow bananas and various 
citrus fruit outdoors.

Ute
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From: "Jacqueline T. Gray" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 16:00:12 -0700 (MST)

Gardens in England.

     If you are planning to visit Windsor Castle, a wonderful garden to
explore and escape from the summer crowds is nearby Savill Gardens.  Small
enough to cover in an afternoon, it has beautiful natural areas with lakes
and stream, more formal perennial borders, raised alpine beds and a dry
Mediterranean area. The atmosphere is one of peace, tranquility and
harmony with nature.  I love it best in Spring with the rhododendrons,
primulas and erythroniums but that just happens to be my favourite season.
Summer is equally colourful. 

     In the north of England, in my native Yorkshire, is another garden
near the city of Harrogate called Harlow Carr.  This is the northern 
outpost of the Royal Horticultural Society. Again set in a valley it has 
mlany fine plantings and areas to explore.

     I quite agree with the previous post on Butchart, I much prefer the 
Van Dusen Botanical and the University of BC Botanical Gardens in 
Vancouver, BC.

     I do hope you will report back on your travels after the trip!  
Enjoy yourselves.

Cheers
Jackie

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From: "Jacqueline T. Gray" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 16:00:12 -0700 (MST)

Gardens in England.

Cheers
Jackie

---

From: [email-masked] (Liana Babin)
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 20:59:18 GMT

>> (Our personal favorite so far is Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C.)
As a native British Columbian it is great to see the plug for Butchart
Gardens, which I agree a spectacular!

I was in Kew Gardens (a tube ride from downtown London) at rhodo blooming
time and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I can't remember much
else (it was 21 years ago and I was recovering from infectious hepatitus
at the time).

---

From: [email-masked] (Anthony Hartman)
Date: 1 Apr 1995 00:06:21 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Liana Babin) writes:
|> 
|> >> Do any of you have any great European garden recommendations?
|> >> We'll be visiting Britain, France, Switzerland, and Italy.
|> >> 
|> >> -Allan

Near Paris, be sure and see Vaux le Vicomte. This and Versailles are
the best preserved of the gardens by Le Notre, the great French 
landscape architect. Vaux is probably his best, and has some human
interest in it as well, since the original owner, Falconet, who
was the finance minister for Louis XIV spent the rest of his life in
prison after a very grand opening party. He invited Louis, for whom he
even furnished an entire suite of the chateau. Louis was very
much impressed:  first  by the scale and expense, which
he determined had been made possible by Falconet's use of public 
funds, and secondly by the designers. He immediately hired LeNotre
and the architect to build Versailles. Of the two gardens, Vaux is superior
since the site was better than that of Versailles. Do a little reading
before you go however. I didn't appreciate what I was looking at when
I visited about 20 years ago. Look for "Gardens of Illusion" by Hazlehurst.

In Italy there are several gardens in the vicinity of Rome. There is the
Villa d'Este at Tivoli, which is also the site of Hadrian's villa. It 
is the best example of the terraced Italian garden, and is especially
noted for its many fountains. Unlike Versailles where the fountains
only play at particular times, a river was diverted from its original
course and provides ample water. (In 1580 Cardinal Ipolitto d'Este
did not have to worry about environmental impact statements.) 

Another quite different Renaissance garden is the Villa Lante at 
Bagnaia, about thirty miles from Rome.  While the Villa d'Este anticipates
some of the energy and thrust that one associates with Baroque,
the Villa Lante is a perfect example of the Renaissance garden. It
also has elaborate fountains. The series of villas at Frascati are
also worth visiting. 

In Florence, be sure to visit the Boboli gardens. A very good book
on the Italian gardens is "The Italian Renaissance Garden by 
Claudia Lazzaro. This is not just a coffee table book, but one of
the best available on the 16th century Italian garden. 
Both the Lazzaro and Hazlehurst books are in print.

=--
Tony Hartman
[email-masked]