Then I would garden in the style of that particular house's architecture...it jsut seems to "go" better. And if the HOUSE is "vernacular" (IE---a combination of several popular styles put together by a builder who was not an architect)-then I would do a "vernacular" garden!

Melanie

Well, heres my rather simplified philosophy on your topic....

I think you needs to approach the restoration/history of a garden the same way you would approach restoring an old house. It takes a certain type of person to undertake the restoration of an old house or garden - a love of history, a great respect for the past, and unlimited patience. ThatÂs why there was the request made for this very forum  we tend to be a rather unique lot.

An old house reflects, often in very subtle ways, all the people and periods it has spanned over its lifetime. There are houses where a particular style has been preserved, and others that show evidence of the changes each generation has added/imposed upon the structure. When it comes down to the decision of what is to be Ârecreated many of these decisions are based on what Âperiod is most evident and/or what period is most preferred. Some restorers are purists and will return the home and garden to its original floor plan and layout as best as can be determined. Others are comfortable with a Âhopscotch of periods and styles, and still others who find that one particular era of their homes history suits them best. If you have a house and/or garden with a Georgian feel  it would seem that the direction to take would be an easy decision, but not necessarily the obvious choice. I have several friends with older homes of a particular style who have chosen to move either their homes and/or gardens in a completely different direction from its original intent. Not my cup of tea (thatÂs why IÂm in this forum) but most definitely theirs, and it works because it is who they are.

So, yes, it is a Âhopscotch approach  do I toss my stone to fit that square or that one? ItÂs comes down to a matter of personal choice. Our homes and gardens are expression of who we are, here and now, and are the face we put forward for the world to see - just as each of the previous occupants/gardeners have done before us

Barbara

I guess that in Quebec there is enough history to have some period gardens that you might want to restore. Having grown up in the Los Angeles area and then moving to Venezuela I have never lived in an area where there was anything very old and certainly no gardens of bygone eras to even consider restoring. So keep this in mind and I will tell you my personal feelings about exact garden restoration.

I think though that you would have to first be very sure that restoring the garden to it's original state is valid today. Are there really many places that merit returning them to their original state? Were the gardens even good in their day? Maybe the original owners just stuck plants in here and there or planted foundation plantings just like everyone else in their day did. Or on an estate the garden was copied from ideas seen in photos or on a trip to Europe back in the 1800's. Are the Williamsburg gardens really authentic, same designs, same plants, same mud roads etc. I went to Deerfield, Massachusetts for historical reasons. I saw a lovely town with lawns and huge trees and gardens, a beautiful, peaceful place to live, but a far cry from the muddy or dusty, treeless streets of it's historical significant era of the early 1700's. Would it be better to cut all the trees down as those farmers back then did so as to make it historically correct? There has got to be a very clear reason to restore a garden to its former self.

I think most people would rather see a garden pleasant to their eye than something uninteresting but historically correct. Probably just giving the feel of the time period is enough without going overboard on all the exact details. The California mission of San Juan Capistrano draws people partly because there is a certain romance to a ruined church but also because the gardens are a delight, nevermind that they are full of flowers and plants brought to California long after the Spanish were kicked out. All but one of these missions are now in the centers of urban areas and would draw more people if their gardens were beautiful. Choosing the plant material to give the feel of the past would probably be sufficient. The one mission that is still out in the country, I think it is called Misson San Antonio, south of Salinas between Soledad and San Miguel, is in its natural country setting and probably should have a period garden. So sometimes it is valid to restore a garden, but you then have to do your homework and be really clear of what it was like back when.

chris

You asked the question that keeps lurking at the back of my mind because my house sits on the cusp of Victorian. The house isn't a Queen Anne. It's a Princess Anne (less ornate than a Queen Anne) built in a small town that was booming at the turn of the century. It's Victorian, but not as Victorian as other houses built in the later 1800's. (We think the house was built for one of the Campbells of Brady, Texas who came from Scotland originally to raise cattle in the wild Texas countryside.) How would they garden, if they even gardened? Later, the house was owned by a banker.--Perhaps one of the Campbell descendants? How would he garden?

Barbara hit it on the nose when she said a house reflects all the people/periods that have passed through it between the time it was built and the present. While I wish to retain all of the original aspects of our house at the point when I purchased it, our landscaping will not be 100% accurate to the exact time period in which it was built.

Further, I would think just as there are regional differences in landscaping today, there were probably regional differences in landscaping throughout history.--Formal landscaping in New York in the 1900's would most likely be different than formal landscaping in the 1900's in San Antonio, Texas (Spanish/German influences).--The climate, soil, availability of plants, the interplay of cultures and the social position of the homeowners would all bare upon the landscaping of a house.

In our situation because we were anxious to have some sort of landscaping for our house, we installed hardscape that would go better with a house built in the 1920's. This hardscape doesn't actually detract from the house. Rip it out?--Probably not with the amount of $$ and time involved.

Chris, you also make some valid points.--Maybe the original gardens, in some instances, weren't all that spectacular especially if the house was not part of a big estate.

I guess it comes down to a guessing game and whether or not the current gardener is a purist when it comes to historical accuracy.

Yes Redthistle, I think it is a personal thing in the end.

There would have to be a very strong reason for ME to decide to restore an old garden to its original design. The house that my grandmother grew up in here in Venezuela, is an old house that was built in the 1820's or so. It would be considered colonial. It has not changed much in over a hundred years, but the garden has. Back when it was built people did not have lawns as there was neither a good grass or equipment to work with. Mostly these houses had a few plants and a lot of raked dirt around them. They probably had these huge areas of dirt around their houses so that they could see the Bothrups snakes. What gardens there were, were "designed" in the style of formal gardens these people would see in Europe of the time. What I mean is, there would be circles of colorful plants clipped into low hedges, like layered cakes. That had nothing to do with the exuberant, lush jungle around them. The gardens had limited plant material to work with and there were no home gardeners like today. Nobody of that class worked in the gardens. What I am saying is that the gardens that exsisted really were nothing worth conserving much less restoring. When I get the chance to renovate one of these places you can bet that I will make it into the luch tropical garden all of you have in the back of your minds when you think of one. It will not reflect the historical period but it will be more of a reflection of the surroundings and it will have the romance of the tropics that will make it feel right. Maybe that is what is needed, that the garden feel right for the house and site. Can't a victorian house feel right with a garden that is informal and flows with organic lines? I would think it could but I may be wrong. chris

Here is a thread from way back that deserved more input, perhaps with a new interest in history I am justified in resurrecting it especially as it ended with an unanswered question.

Well, there are actually a number of interesting questions here to chew on.

Back to one of your original questions INK: as a general matter, stylistic and technological changes often take place more gradually and unevenly than we are led to believe when memorizing the start and end dates ascribed to particlar "periods" in a history book. Usually the earliest start date of something is better documented than its acceptance and implementation. I'm more familiar with this dilemna in other disciplines, but it seems this poses similar issues for garden history. For example, many books on garden history that I've seen contain lists of "heirloom" plants organized by date of introduction in the U.S. (I'm sure there are similar lists for other countries). But the fact that a particular variety of rose was first introduced in 1870 does not mean it was widely available or affordable. If you are trying to figure out whether this rose might be historically appropriate for a particular garden that existed in 1870--which is really about the most you can try to do, in the absence of any documentation or physical remains that would provide a basis for "restoring" or "recreating"--you need to consider more information. For example: if the house itself dates to 1870, is there reason to believe that the garden also was planted then, or was it perhaps planted later? Was the owner or designer someone who would have had the interest and ability to stay abreast of the latest trends in rose introductions? Was there a likely nearby source for such new plants? Would the owner have had the money required to purchase a trendy new plant, as opposed to an old stand-by? etc. Even then, you are really only taking your best guess. Here's a modern example for comparison: there are a number of discussion threads on the Landscape Design forum about backyard features such as hot tubs and ponds. Reading these threads, as well as a number of current gardening magazines, you can correctly surmise that many people have such features in their backyards. But it would be a gross mistake in judgment to assume that everyone with a backyard garden in 2005 has incorporated one or both of these features. (With the possible exception of Californians . . . :)

Barbara and others raised comparisons with the preservation and restoration of architecture, which is a field I am more familiar with, and one which I agree is an obvious reference point for considering questions about garden restoration and garden history. However, I am also fascinated by one way in which these two fields diverge. In architectural preservation, the place of primacy is usually given to the preservation of original fabric, which necessarily embodies the original design. Regarding gardens though, I see an inherent tension between respect for the original design of the garden, and the fact that plants grow over time. (Architectural materials are generally more static, and to the extent they do change, it is usually a matter of deterioration rather than expansion). So you wind up with the type of dilemnas that have been mentioned here before about whether to leave a gigantic 200+ year boxwood hedge in place, because it was original to the estate, or whether to yank it and replace it with boxwoods of a size more in keeping with the original design of the garden. (Perhaps Fran will chime in here--I seem to recall that the garden where she works has faced similar issues, and because its mission is to recreate the garden as it existed on X date, they are more prone to yank plants that have grown beyond certain limits).

With respect to Chris's last unanswered question, I think the answer is "yes", but in some respects it posed more as a design question (what looks right with what) than a history question. In any event, though, it also brings us back full circle to INK's original inquiry, since Chris is working on the widespread assumption that a Victorian garden is always something formal. Yet, there is a book on my shelf entitled "Grandmother's Garden: The Old-Fashioned American Garden, 1865-1915" which provides documentation about the persistence of more informal and cottage style gardens throughout the Victorian period.

Thanks for resurrecting this, hope others may chime in. Kate