An Italian Garden In A Harsh Climate. Italian Style Of Landscape Design. Photo

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An Italian Garden In A Harsh Climate. Italian Style Of Landscape Design. Photo
An Italian Garden In A Harsh Climate. Italian Style Of Landscape Design. Photo

Video: An Italian Garden In A Harsh Climate. Italian Style Of Landscape Design. Photo

Video: An Italian Garden In A Harsh Climate. Italian Style Of Landscape Design. Photo
Video: 35+ Impressive Italian Landscape Design Ideas for your Home Garden and Yard #8 2024, March
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Sunny, picturesque and colorful Italy inspires designers, artists and gardeners. The charm of her landscapes, gardens and courtyards is recreated on their sites around the globe. The much harsher climate is no exception. Despite the limitation in the selection of plants, the color of the Italian garden can be recreated in Central Russia. To do this, you just need to follow some planning canons and find alternatives to the brightest stars of Mediterranean gardens.

Content:

  • From the unattainable to the realizable
  • Basics of decorating an Italian garden
  • Materials and typical elements
  • Flower beds in green frames
  • Fences, green sculptures and skeletal plants
  • All eyes on the pot collection
Italian style in landscape design
Italian style in landscape design

The Italian style is an easily recognizable trend in landscape design, offering to add to the regular basis the charm of a bright southern flavor. This style of landscape design is a trend of the regular style, it is quite simple in layout, obeys strict geometry and symmetry, but adds bright details, architectural accents and an unexpected variety of pots and tubs to a rather pretentious and pompous base. In no other style do they treat the silhouette and form as carefully, they do not present small architecture and garden accessories just as beautifully.

Worshiping the Renaissance, Antiquity and Baroque at the same time, Italian gardens are famous primarily for their atmosphere. There is nothing superfluous in them, and at the same time - nothing boring. This is a garden in which they create harmony from incompatible elements and invite you to remember that simplicity and purity of lines are always the best solutions. Cozy seating areas filled with a special charm, delighting both the eyes and the heart, the walking areas, the spot use of accents and the warmth of the palette allow Italian gardens to create a feeling of complete detachment from the outside world. They seem to transport visitors through time and space, suggesting that they forget about everything that awaits them outside the site and allow themselves to enjoy the paradise beauty.

From the unattainable to the realizable

In regions with harsh winters, the Italian garden has long seemed a ghostly, hard-to-reach dream. But, as in any other style of landscape design, in Italian you can experiment, look for non-trivial solutions and implementations. Due to the fact that the Italian garden defines the frame, color concept and character rather than blindly following the canons, the right choice of plants and materials allows you to achieve the same result with the help of radically different plants. Any horticultural crop that is grown in mild southern conditions has its competitors with much greater winter hardiness. And even the "business cards" of Italian landscapes can be replaced with plants that thrive in our middle lane.

Despite the fact that it is relatively easy to implement the idea of an Italian garden with proper planning and careful selection of plants, in regions with harsh winters, the Italian style is rarely chosen to decorate absolutely the entire territory of the site. This direction of landscape design is rightly called one of the best for individual areas of the garden, the creation of "secret rooms" or levels of decoration. Traditionally, only a part of the site or a separate object is allotted for the Italian garden, combining the Mediterranean style with other regular or landscape currents in the rest of the area.

The point is that the Italian garden requires tireless maintenance. The abundance of topiary elements and huge areas under potted gardens, the use of bright flowering plants that need attention and care, not to mention loose coatings, paving care and accessories, makes you sensibly assess your capabilities and use style only on such an area, the care of which does not become too burdensome.

In any Italian garden it is worth highlighting two most important and decisive design components:

  • Basic structure and style-forming elements. They should not differ even in a radically different climate, because it is the main "points" that determine the identification of style, are irreplaceable and have no alternative.
  • "Filling" is the materials and plants that are used to decorate the garden. Their choice allows you to adapt the southern style to the realities of harsh winters, take into account the local specifics, climatic features and the possibilities in the choice of types and varieties, types of stones, in varieties of ceramics, etc.

An Italian garden is not a flat structure. This is an excellent solution for a garden on a slope or with uneven terrain, even with the most difficult "profile" of the site. Since it is in the Italian style that elevation differences, terraces, stairs, and recessed areas are best played up, this style can first of all be recommended to those who are looking for a solution to the problem of uneven terrain. This does not mean that you cannot create an Italian garden on sites with a "flat" profile: imitations or artificial changes solve the same problems as natural drops, and in the style itself there are many interesting ideas when designing large areas of flat relief.

The main thing in the Italian garden is the dominance of evergreens, green color, simple geometry and light stone. But there are also many unique features in the structure and in the choice of flowering plants.

Italian style in landscape design
Italian style in landscape design

Basics of decorating an Italian garden

Symmetry and austere layouts form the basis of Italian gardens. In projects, everything is subject to classical geometry. The tone of the entire design is set by axes (tracks) and composition centers - indispensable objects that define and outline the style.

Axles should be laid even when arranging a separate area (for example, a recreation area or a secret garden) in the Italian style. They set the tone for the arrangement and indicate the main direction of movement. In the Italian style, the main, longitudinal axis and transverse lateral axes are always distinguished, going at right angles to it, on which the main objects and elements are located - the composition centers. There should not be a tricky and complex division in the garden - everything is drawn with simple lines, along which the main objects of a strict form are located. And you need to start from the most important architectural element of the site - the house, one after the other placing the remaining compositional elements.

Composition centers for the Italian style:

1. The first compositional center is the house. The central axis is always laid so that the house remains either on it or on the first side line perpendicular to the central longitudinal axis of the garden.

2. Parterre. The flat garden, which is located on a fairly large territory in the flattest part of the garden or near the house, is a kind of center and the main walking area, filled with ceremonial solemnity. Flower beds and fountains, pergolas and paths intertwine, creating a geometric walking park area. In the parterre, statues, supports for vines are actively used, usually limiting it from the rest of the garden with a stone wall or an imitation of an amphitheater.

3. Pond or series of reservoirs, fountain or series of fountains. It is impossible to imagine an Italian garden without water bodies. A classic round pond with a multi-tiered classic fountain or sculpture in the center is just one of the variations. Wall-mounted Roman fountains, portable compact models, “flat” reservoirs of round, rectangular or oval shape are visual centers that fill Italian gardens with life.

4. Secret garden, or secret corner (giardino segreto). This is a corner hidden from any view, completely enclosed by green or stone walls, designed for solitude, meditation and relaxation. It is one of the most famous attributes of Italian style. Giardino segreto is often equipped separately, inspired by the unique monastic atmosphere of amazing gardens, in which benches are surrounded by strict flower beds, medicinal and spicy flower beds.

5. Relaxation area - a terrace or a large paved area with comfortable furniture and a potted garden brought out into the garden. Often the main recreation area is located near the reservoir. Wherever it is placed, the Italian style always makes it cool, shady and as private as possible. Stone paving, a wooden platform or decorative ceramic tiles that limit the seating area are not important for the Italian style (as well as the style or character of the furniture). The main thing is comfort and coziness, using the maximum area for a pot garden. The main seating area with a sufficient area of the site can be supplemented with a raised gazebo or patio with a canopy, hidden tea corners and benches.

Materials and typical elements

The choice of materials for such a distinctive style is very important. Natural materials with a warm character are chosen for Italian gardens, reminiscent of the sunny limestone and sandstone of the Apennines. Light and warm stone, which is chosen from local rocks, as well as gravel of the warmest colors imitate the atmosphere of sunny relaxation even in harsh climates. Cream stone, shades of terracotta and white in coloring or decorative materials are the best landmarks.

While the Italian style is primarily about natural stone, painted wood, faux stone and concrete, when properly “served”, will also fulfill a similar role, especially if the budget is tight. The contrast of light and dark in the Italian style is realized precisely through materials that should be noticeably lighter than the dominant greenery of the plants.

Typical elements of Italian style:

  • terraces and level gardens;
  • support walls and dry walls;
  • high walls;
  • niches;
  • stairs;
  • ramps;
  • balustrades;
  • classical (antique) sculpture;
  • ceramic vessels for plants.

Accessories and décor in the Italian style are chosen on a grand scale. No small details can replace beautiful plant containers. It is impossible to imagine an Italian garden without sculpture. Antique statues are displayed at fountains, in niches and grottoes, at trimmed hedges, on flower beds, at the end of paths or at their intersections. Traditionally, in the Italian style, sculptures are beaten - with the help of a trimmed border, several tubs on the sides, or they are placed on a paved round platform.

Italian style in landscape design
Italian style in landscape design

Flower beds in green frames

The space between the compositional centers and axes, inside individual zones, is beaten and filled with plants - in strict flower beds of a simple geometric shape, high decorative flower beds or raised flower beds. Flower beds not only fill the planes, but also reveal the color palette, enliven the green base of the garden and fill it with life. In the Italian style, flower beds of the simplest forms are used - round, square or oval flower beds, which have series or simple ornaments.

Any flowerbed is limited by a clipped green boxwood border that emphasizes the lines and creates a green border around any object.

The filling of flower beds is created based on the traditional "Italian" palette - a combination of orange and yellow with red and blue. In the Italian style, you can make the palette monochrome, or you can select one dominant color, dilute the pure base colors with pastel colors. But the same atmosphere that you encounter on the streets of Italian towns cannot be recreated without the use of variegated clean tones.

In the middle lane, typical Italian plants are easy to replace, and some Mediterranean stars grow well even in harsh climates. For example, yucca is threadlike. The favorites of the Italian style are any plants with pointed leaves, a silvery edge and the largest, bright flowers with a pure color.

Italian flower beds can be filled with geraniums, lavender, lilies and daylilies, veronica, milkweed, sage, herbs - from tarragon, basil and hyssop to thyme. Silver-leaved stars are always appropriate - wormwood, carnations, bluehead, purse. Pointed leaves and spectacular flowering are the dignity of irises, gladioli, ornamental bows. Don't forget the importance of completely filling the soil and introducing bright green accents. Such problems are solved with the help of mint, lemon balm, periwinkle, nephrolepis and other ferns. Marigolds and Pelargoniums welcome the Italian style of summer.

Fences, green sculptures and skeletal plants

Trimmed hedges made of yew, privet or other crops that are well adapted to the harsh climate will give the same impression as green walls made of much more Italian plants. High or lower ones, separating zones or creating a background, protecting and decorating, green hedges are complemented with individual trimmed plants - columns, cylinders, pyramids, green obelisks, spheres or other green sculptures from columns to animals, imitation of amphorae, etc. Decorative trimmed bushes and trees set focal points and add vertical accents to the play of flat geometry of flower beds.

Regarding the replacement of trees, everything is very simple: cypresses, the most recognizable culture of Italian landscapes, can be easily changed in the middle lane to thuja, cypress or spruce. And special accents and shading, focal points will be provided by decorative cherries, apple trees, almonds or white acacia. Even the legendary pines are quite successfully replaced by Weymouth pine.

Of the classic deciduous shrubs in the middle lane, it is worth paying attention to sea buckthorn, hawthorn, which perfectly replaces olive trees, silvery elk, derens, which will help add splendor and vertical accents to compositions. The main shrub in the Italian garden, regardless of the climate, is the rose. The queen of gardens in luxurious blooming compositions against the background of the dominant green looks in a special noble way. The main competitor of roses is hydrangea. But only this pair is not limited to the choice of beautifully flowering shrubs. In the Italian garden, spireas, and mock-orange, and Japanese quince, and broom, and treelike St. John's wort, and cinquefoil shrub, and stephanandra look great.

It is difficult to imagine an Italian garden without lianas on supports. Trellises under clematis or a rose, green walls and facades of maiden grapes, pergolas with grapes will be more than appropriate. As well as wisteria, adding a special southern charm to the garden.

Italian style in landscape design
Italian style in landscape design

All eyes on the pot collection

Pots and tubs are the basis for the design of the Italian garden. All types of plants are planted in the container - from lianas, large trees and flowering shrubs to herbaceous perennials, vegetables, herbs and annuals. The more plants in the garden in different tubs, containers or pots, the better. They expose all the free space of the terrace or recreation area, place it on the steps of the stairs, at the porch of the house, on the paths, in the center of the sites, use it as points of attraction for the eye, emphasize the symmetry and shape of flower beds.

Any culture typical of Italian landscapes can be grown as pot and tub stars - from olives and laurels to santolina, bougainvillea, lavender, myrtle, agave, cordiline, cypress, oleander, citrus, almond, fig, pomegranate. Not the last place in the container collection should be occupied by clipped bushes - examples of topiary art.

But if it is easy to navigate in the choice of plants - it is enough to choose Mediterranean plants - then one rule is undesirable to break. The Italian style is the style of earthen and ceramic vessels. And when choosing pots and containers, it is always better to focus on clay materials. Luxurious and expensive terracotta is not the only option. After all, ceramics can be much more resistant to frost, and more budgetary.

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