French gardens – Page 15

Wordless Wednesday: early lavender

March 7, 2012April 13, 2016 Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

Near l'Orangerie, Paris — Near L’Orangerie Museum, Paris, May 2007.

Also see here.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: le cortil

February 29, 2012April 13, 2016 Cindy at enclos*ure8 Comments

Castle 2 — Look closely at the lower right corner: the huge Chateau d’Amboise has a ‘little yard’ — *cortil* in Old French — and a side door.

Also see here and here.

Oiseau de France comme avant

February 7, 2012April 13, 2016 Cindy at enclos*ure4 Comments

3c21912v — “Gardener standing alongside shrub trimmed into shape of a rooster, in garden at Villa Trianon, France,” about 1925. Click the photo to enlarge.

I have looked at a lot of photographs of topiary lately, but this one is particularly spiffy (beau, somptueux, resplendissant).

It’s from the Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) was one of the first American women to achieve prominence as a professional photographer. After studying art in Paris, she returned home to Washington, D.C., in the 1880s and opened a photography studio about 1890. Her family’s social standing gave her access to the capital’s elite, including the First Family, politicians, and diplomats, and her business soon took off. In the 1910s, she turned to garden and estate photography.

More on Gilles Clement

June 21, 2011August 27, 2011 Cindy at enclos*ure2 Comments

I started looking for something more on the work of Gilles Clément and came across this interesting lecture that he gave for UCSD, “What is the Third Landscape?”

In the film clip above, Clément defines a garden as an enclosure “done in order to protect the best.” Today, he says, the best is “the life, mostly the diversity.” He discusses his design concept of “garden in movement.” This is the name of the section of Parc Andre-Citroën in Paris that he designed, and which I had foolishly thought referred to a garden with a lot of wavy plants. Continue reading “More on Gilles Clement” →

The Royal Gardens of Blois

June 18, 2011July 23, 2017 Cindy at enclos*ure7 Comments

While transferring some old files to a new computer, I found these photos of a walled public garden near the château in Blois, France. I took them in the spring of 2007.

The garden was designed by Gilles Clément and was built in 1987. The section I photographed is a wonderful blend of the structured (hedges set in strict lines) and loose (grasses, large rosebushes, and tall perennials planted between).

The tops of the yew hedges are not level, but are sheared into rolling curves. With the grasses moving in the wind between them, you sense the motion of waves, even in this very formal garden layout.

The Royal Gardens — I wish I knew the name of that grass.

You can read about Gilles Clément in a brief article from the February 2010 issue of Garden Design. He also designed the more well-known Moving Garden at the Parc André-Citroën in Paris.

Click on any thumbnail photo below to scroll through all the enlarged pictures.