International Garden Photographs

Away.com: Photo Galleries of Worldwide Landscape Gardens

Apr 7, 2007
Georgene A. Bramlage

April: Landscaping at Suite101 "Link of the Month." Away.com offers an archive of travel photographs that includes galleries devoted to international garden landscapes.

Overview

Buried deeply within the Away.com Network is an Archive of Travel Photo Galleries that includes several sections devoted to Flowers and International Garden Landscape photos.

Browsing through these garden travel photographs can be a valuable use of time. While they are not a collection of feasible landscape ideas for residential gardens, the photos do offer accessible examples of garden history and landscape design.

Readers can study these landscape photographs and come away from them wanting to learn more about the individual flowers, gardens and landscapes they represent. They can also pick up specific landscape ideas, such as massing spring-blooming bulbs of one color, from looking carefully at individual photographs such as that of the Keukenhof spring-blooming bulb gardens.

International Garden Landscapes

France: Villandry, near Tours (Loire Valley); early 20th century recreation of 16th century formal landscaping around a castle garden; the flower parterres use 19 miles of sheared and shaped boxwood (Buxus sp.) hedges.
Wales: Bodnant Gardens, Gwynedd near Snowdonia Mts.and River Conway; excellent plant collections including water features; especially important are five descending courses of terraces.
France: Claude Monet's country house and garden at Giverny near Paris; the impressionist artist painted flower-filled landscapes here; most notable are the annual gardens leading toward and away from the house.
Portugal: Monteiro-Mor Park, Largo Julio de Castillo, Lisbon; belongs to an 18th C. palace complex ; plants more than 100 years old; mixture of formal and wild nature, fountains and weathered stone statues; extensive plant collections.
Italy: Villa Gamberaia, Settignana (Arno Valley) Tuscany; fantastic gardens in small spaces; 17th century-early 18th century restoration after damages of World War II; terraces overlook Arno Valley.
Spain: Alcazar fortress, Plaza del Triunfo, Seville; gardens designed in Arabic style; include waterfalls, tile work, and sprays of jasmine.
Holland; Keukenhof Gardens near Lisse; a 65-acre garden, the showplace for the Dutch bulb industry; best in April and May; spring-flowering bulbs, especially tulips, thrive in the region's damp, sandy land.

Flowers of Natural and Built Landscapes

United States: Missouri, Lake of the Ozarks; largest man-made lake in the world; shoreline edged by Missouri’s state flower, flowering dogwood (Cornus florida); six of the 17 North American dogwood species (Cornus) grow naturally here.
Japan: Hana-mi (“flower-viewing”) festivals in springtime; cherry blossoms bloom from Okinawa north to Honshu and Hokkaido.
Belgium: Ghent Floralies (Festival of Flowers), Flanders Expo Building, Sint-Deniis-Westrem; begun in 1809, now held every five years; showcases plants important to Belgian horticulture as well as international contributors; next exposition is April 16 to 25, 2010.
United States: Georgia, Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain (southern Appalachians); butterfly on chrysanthemum.
Canada: Alberta, Jasper National Park; fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium.) in wildflower-filled meadows; view toward the Columbia ice field.
United States: Hawaii; tropical and subtropical plants edge waterfall borders.
United States: Alaska, Denali National Park; dry tundra; pink moss campion (Silene acaulis), Lapland rosebay (Rhododendron lapponicum), alpine azalea (Loiseleuria procumbens), goldenrod (Solidago spp.), wild larkspur (Delphinium ajacis), daisy-like arnicas (Arnica montana), hot-pink fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) and Alaska's state flower, tiny blue forget-me-nots (Myosotis alpestris).

More Information here at Suite101 about garden travel photographs and landscape photographs:

Design and Structure: A Photographic Encyclopedia by Derek Fell.

Residential Landscaping Photos: How to make use of landscape design and landscape idea photos as landscape design tools.

Landscaping Photographs Online: Internet sites that offer landscape pictures vary significantly.

Landscape Design, Tips and Terms: The core of Derek Fell's book "Encyclopedia of Garden Design and Structure" is an information bank of garden landscape photos, but the introduction is its foundation.

The Gardener's Gift of Travel: Part I - A virtual field trip through selected gardens of North America. Design characteristics pertinent to each garden are discussed.

The Gardener's Gift of Travel: Part II - The second part of a virtual field trip through selected gardens of North America. Design characteristics, most notably informalism and naturalism.