Garden Ornament: Five Hundred Years of History and Practice

The tremendous upsurge of interest in garden history and design in recent years has prompted a renewed fascination with the art and artifacts of garden ornament. Those decorative objects--buildings, statues, urns, balustrades, trellises, fountains, ironwork, seats--lend character and definition to garden layout and play an important part in contemporary horticultural design. One of the most significant additions to the literature of horticulture in recent times, this volume surveys ornament in garden design of the past and analyzes the use of different types of ornament in gardens old and new. George Plumptre traces the use of ornamental features throughout the history of the Western garden from the great formal gardens of Italy and France to the more intimate creations of contemporary design. Taking the principal categories of ornament in turn, he shows how, over the last five hundred years, garden designers have used stone, wood, and metal to enhance and modify the natural features of the landscape. He then analyzes the role of ornament in modern garden design, showing how long-held and tested principles of design can be applied imaginatively in the typical modern garden. Finally, there is an illustrated survey of the great variety of ornaments that can still be found, and that are well within the reach of the modern gardener. The photographs of contemporary gardens are the work of Hugh Palmer. His pictures, rich in atmosphere and acutely sensitive to detail, make Garden Ornament doubly indispensable for garden historians as well as for gardeners in search of detailed information and inspiration.